OM DENNE EPISODE
Matt Pincus is Owner of Pincus Elevator, a family-owned elevator contractor founded by his father in 1953.
In this episode, Matt takes us inside the day-to-day realities of running a specialty contracting business. His biggest constraint is skilled labor: elevator mechanics take years to develop, experienced people are difficult to hire, and simply adding headcount isn't an easy answer.
That makes productivity increasingly important. Matt describes the goal in concrete terms: if a job takes 200 labor hours today, how do you get it done in 150 with the same people, without sacrificing quality or safety?
We also discuss what happens when customers who once paid in 30–60 days start stretching toward 90–120, why Pincus brought in a fractional CFO, and how quickly that changed decisions around collections, forecasting, and hiring.
And we get into technology and AI: where Matt sees opportunities to improve the business, why contractors can know exactly where their inefficiencies are and still struggle to fix them, and what it would take for new technology to actually change how the work gets done.
Topics include:
The skilled labor constraint in the elevator industry
Why developing an elevator mechanic takes years
Productivity when you can't simply hire more people
The 200-hours-to-150-hours challenge
Cash flow and lengthening payment cycles
Bringing in a fractional CFO
Knowing your operational problems vs. actually fixing them
Technology adoption inside a specialty contractor
Where AI and automation could realistically help
Running a multi-generational family business
BuiltForward
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