Jason Wagner

## Key Points - SMB electrical contractor owner/estimator at North Valley Electric. Has always been an electrician or PM. Previously Director of Electrical (fire alarm, fire sprinkler division). - Has built strong estimating intuition: can rough-estimate a job within 10 minutes based on $/sq ft (office TI = $18/sq ft, apartment = $14K/unit, 2BR = $15.5K). Doesn't care about wire counts at that stage. - Custom spreadsheet with formulas: listed price, labor, taxes. Detailed and well-built. Types in materials and costs. - 9.5/10 times, the GC copies his electrical contract/proposal verbatim into the main contract. When submittal differences arise, the engineer can't push back because it's already in the contract. ## Pain Points Mentioned - Proposal writing is the real bottleneck: estimating takes 2 hours, but writing the proposal takes 8 hours. Every electrical scope is different. Equipment packages alone require 2 pages of detailed specs (phase, indoor/outdoor, amperage, etc.). - AI estimating software doesn't work for electrical: used it in 2017 at A1 Electrical, gave up. The problem is electrical is field-installed after everyone else -- you don't know how many I-beams are in the way, if things will move, ceiling height varies. Always estimate worst case. - Electrical engineers over-engineer 100%: spec expensive lights ($400) when identical alternatives exist at $100. Engineers are wined and dined by specific manufacturers. - Massive price variance across suppliers: Electrician A gets $400, B gets $360, C gets $260 for the same product. Relationships drive pricing. ## Product Feedback - Skeptical of AI for accurate electrical estimating due to field installation unknowns (routing around I-beams, ceiling variations). Every project is genuinely different. - The proposal generation angle resonates: "AI can take your estimate and generate the proposal" -- that 2h estimate -> 8h proposal pain is where the time is lost. - Software he tried used online pricing which doesn't reflect real supplier relationships. - Value engineering is his edge: proposes cheaper equivalent products that look/function the same. Engineer can't push back because it's in the contract. ## Next Steps - Follow up back end of next week or early the following week - Explore proposal generation as a use case -- high pain, 4x time multiplier from estimate to proposal - Research what other estimators say about proposal writing as a pain point