Isaac (00:09): What is up everybody? Isaac here with Civil Engineering Academy. Excited to be with you on another podcast episode. Appreciate you. Joining me today, I bring special guest on Robert Ewen. And he is the CEO and co-founder of a company called Monograph. And it's actually a really cool software company that's kind of revolutionizing the future of architecture and engineering in terms of what you're doing at your firm and a software that you're using to manage all the stuff that you have going on there. So he started out as an architect. He actually has a couple of degrees. His story is fascinating, and we get into those details. But fast forward, he started a monograph and is helping all kinds of firms with their workflows and how they are project managing projects. So Robert is awesome. He does a fantastic job. His company is exploding. And so we brought him on to talk about not only his, his history, but find out everything we can about monograph and really how it's helping firms out there, but their businesses. So without further ado, let me get to our podcast episode. If you have any questions about this, feel free to leave comments, shoot me an email. And as always, if you need help with your FE or PE exam and that journey to become a professional engineer, reach out to us and check out our website. It's civil engineering academy.com. We'll be there to help you as well. So we're excited about this one. Without further ado, let me get to my interview with Robert. It's coming up right after this.

Isaac (01:37): All right, Robert, we're rocking and rolling. Thanks for jumping on the Civil Engineering Academy podcast. Appreciate you doing this with me.

Robert (01:43): Thank you for having me. I'm really, really excited.

Isaac (01:46): Yeah. it's always fun to connect and meet new people through a podcast. I've had some awesome people including yourself, but I always love to kick these things off. Just kinda asking, you know, your own background. Give us a little history of your, your own history of work and what you're doing today.

Robert (02:04): Wow. gosh, I wish we were at a bar. 'cause Like, wouldn't we need a lot? We wanna eat a lot more than 30 minutes. . let me see. I born and raised, grew up in Chicago City proper. My parents are Chinese immigrants from Southern China. We grew up really, really poor. I played Legos my entire childhood. I was in a trade high school, so I learned drafting and AutoCAD and architecture in high school.

Isaac (02:35): Wow.

Robert (02:37): Because I did well, I was awarded internships in the summer. So my first architecture job was in high school. I studied undergrad, a bachelor's in architecture from the University of Illinois Chicago campus. I worked for a few years. I backpacked for a year around the world. I did a M mark degree at Michigan, so go blue for everyone who's out there in Michigan fan. And then I did a second master's in robotics in architecture and digital fabrication. I worked at Skidmore Owens in Merrill Chicago office. So I did a lot of towers. I moved to the Bay Area for a girl, and then I did mostly high end residential. And then five years ago I started my graph. Here I am.

Isaac (03:25): Wow. . Wow. Oh, man. Well, that, that's very brief. There's a lot to unpack in there.

Robert (03:32): Like I said, you can, you can take any one of those topics and we can probably have an entire night's conversation.

Isaac (03:38): . We definitely could. Well, let's, I, I guess we'll just start with monograph. So for our listeners that have no idea what that is, what, what is monograph? What, what is that today?

Robert (03:50): So monograph, we're project management, time, tree tracking, project management, invoicing. We're essentially everything a small firm needs to have to run their business. And we are founded by architects, engineers, and we're trying to build it for architects, engineers. So that's, it's a, it's a software solution. We're about five years old. We have about 1700 firms using monograph today. They employed over 12,000 architects and engineers. So really, really fast. Went from zero to that number, went from three guys working out of an apartment in San Francisco to, we're now almost 80 people as a, as a company size. So that's,

Isaac (04:37): It's growing fast.

Robert (04:38): It is growing very fast.

Isaac (04:41): So I'm curious how, what was like the genesis of that? Were you working somewhere and, and you realized there could be better solution that's out there? Or what, how did, how did you come about starting it?

Robert (04:55): You know, like, like most architects, engineers, all of my friends are architects, engineers, and we do the classic Friday happy hour couple beers, couple cold ones. And we always talk about the same things. We talk about deadlines, we talk about not making enough money. We talk about project schedules going completely outta whack. We, we talk about the hurdles of actually managing work. And I think it, it took years, like obviously this is like happy hour conversations for every Friday for like my entire architecture career. And then it finally hit dawn on me and my co-founder was like, Hey, like naively we can solve that problem. Can't be that hard. But honestly speaking, some credibly hard we're still working on it. But I think a lot of it came from just being aware, being around all of our friends and then being constantly reminded that managing projects, managing fees, managing deliverables, it's actually really, really difficult.

Robert (06:02): And there isn't like an elegant solution at all. There is like a lot of firms that uses spreadsheets to do that. Which honestly speaking with all the AI news today, like we should not be using spreadsheets or sticky no. Or a sketch pad to run a firm like that. That cannot be the reality for, for us right now. And if that just cannot be the reality I refuse to accept that. And if you don't use spreadsheets, you're probably on a software that might be 20 years old or even 40 years old, depending on which company you're using. And they're absolutely not designed for the modern era of how we do work. So we got two different problems. You're either not using anything or you're using something that's so old that it's, it is, it's time. It's time to put it, put it to rest.

Isaac (06:59): That's awesome. So you started the company, I'm assuming, I feel like a lot of companies are probably using, you know, a QuickBooks solution and an Excel spreadsheet solution. What kind of sets monograph apart? Is it, it seems like it's almost like an all in one solution. I mean, can you put project files into this? Is there abilities to keep all this all together in one spot? Invoicing and everything else?

Robert (07:33): That is the goal. That is the goal. That it, is it, what I internally use the phrase a lot is that we wanna be the operating system for how firms run their business. So, and that's very different. Like we don't, we're not gonna do anything that solves, let's say your drafting work, your energy modeling work your 3D modeling work. We're not, we're not gonna solve that part of the problem. We're really gonna focus, like how does the firm run? So there's a couple things we gotta nail down. We gotta know where you spend your time. Everyone in the architecture, engineering space, we're professional services. We're measured regardless if you like it or not. We are measured by what and how we work. So we need to know that, you know, how well you work and where you spend your time on any given project.

Isaac (08:22): We need more hours,

Robert (08:23): Billable hours or workable hours. Like, you don't have to the, you know, that's a, that's an amazing topic to cover because I think a lot of people in the industry thinks the time you spend is also the time you bill. And that's not always the case. Doesn't have to be, it can be, you can also just understand how much you've worked and bill something completely different. That's okay. But the fact that if you do not track at all, that's not okay. And there's a reason for that. If you track what you earn, what you work on and build what you work on, great. Very seamless. But if you don't track at all, you have no idea If you're efficient, you have no idea. If you spend too much time, you have no idea if you've allocated the right amount of time. Especially if you're a bigger firm and you have big teams, multiple teams, staffing and staffing allocations and resourcing allocations become a huge thing to solve. Can't do that if you don't know what the actual resources are. Can't resource allocate if you don't know what the resources are. Yeah.

Isaac (09:31): So

Robert (09:32): Yes, we do wanna be an on one, an operating system for how a and d firms operate from the very small firms to very large firms.

Isaac (09:41): Hmm. So it sounds like, I mean, you've definitely had a pain point that you're probably seeing with architecture and engineering firms in terms of tracking hours and what you're doing. Are there any other problems that you see firms are doing that this, that that, that your software can, can solve?

Robert (10:02): Copy paste. Huh? Copy paste. I, so if you are in Excel, right? Excel and QuickBooks, or if you're in a legacy software, you're still doing something that everyone I've seen do, which is you take something that you've ventured in one area and you copy and paste it into another area and you might copy and paste it into another area. By the time you do this, the third time you're driving me and say there, there's no reason. Right? With today's technology that you should have to copy paste. So here's the advantage of being an a modern solution and a new solution is that we just built in all the automations for you. So theoretically, internally, we always work against this. You should only enter data once. If we ever ask you for the same data more than once, it doesn't make any sense. So AI plays a key factor in this, plays in key factor in this. And also like how do you design the product? So you can think about product that was designed in the early nineties and everything was in widgets and modules. If you think about it, that means literally you've compartmentalized a set of data and it doesn't talk to a part of the software. This is why you have to type case.

Isaac (11:20): I'm, I'm really curious. So you mentioned AI in the use of the software. Um how is that being used as part of the monograph?

Robert (11:30): So there's a number of different areas where we're using it. The way we think about AI is like ideally is it's making it life better and you never even notice it. So very different approach. And let's say a chat GBT or a chat bot solution where you're talking to the ai, I think in our scenario would be more like, can you upload your contract of a new project? And we automatically create the entire, like everything we need in terms of project details from our rep. Well, that many AI has to read the PDF. And we have to extrapolate, well, what's the name? Who's the client? How many phases? What's the feed? What's the timeline? What's the duration? What's the scope of work? We have to be able to extract all that information from like just a single PDF and then pre-fill it all into our planner. Obviously at the end of the day you can then validate and say, yes, this looks correct, and we want to add people to the projects. But that's where AI becomes very, very helpful. Because like, it's already doing something that we normally wouldn't be able to do so fast. 'cause We have to like manually enter the contract details that are on A PDF into a software solution. We can just do it simply by you uploading it.

Isaac (12:50): Wow. Has it been, how long have you been running monograph?

Robert (12:57): We're, we're gonna be approaching five and a half years pretty soon. Almost x

Isaac (13:01): Wow. Has it been a challenge for you? I'm just curious, has it been a challenge for you personally? 'cause You were before, what were you doing just before you started monograph and now you're running monograph? Are these two different things or what's that transition been like for you?

Robert (13:21): Incredibly hard. It like, so I have three degrees in architecture. I, all I know is, all I know is how to make buildings . I have no idea how to run a tech company. And yet here I am doing it every single day. And I think I'm doing an incredible job today, but I, I want to absolutely admit it was not easy. It's incredibly hard. But it also proves that like, if you put your mind to it and you have, you have to drive, you can accomplish anything. I think. I truly believe that like if you have a goal and you have an ambition, you have a dream, go after it. You can do it. Just because you don't have a fancy BAA high net worth family, the right connections to the right people does not mean you cannot pull it off. If anything, I hope to be an example that you can you can, you can come from very humble backgrounds not set up to wane and still, and still get there. It will be hard. It will require a ton of hard work. But you can do it.

Isaac (14:32): That's amazing. Do you have siblings?

Robert (14:36): I'm the oldest. Which probably helps

Isaac (14:40): Paving the way.

Robert (14:41): Yeah, paving the way, being responsible. I'm the oldest brother. I have two younger brothers, all boys. I love my mom.

Isaac (14:49): Wow. And then, wow. And do you have any kids? Are they following dad's footsteps?

Robert (14:54): No kids yet. No. Cousin. I would love to, but no kids yet.

Isaac (15:00): It's, it's so interesting where life kind of takes us and even in our own career paths kind of where we're at. So I, I think there's a story there. You know, if there are engineers or architects that are out there that are listening to this and maybe they have a, an interesting problem and a solution to that problem. I mean, you're a great example of someone that pulled the trigger and started this thing. So would you have any tips for someone that may be going through that same experience?

Robert (15:35): Well, I, I would have a lot of tips. There's a lot of things I've learned along the way. There's a lot.

Isaac (15:39): Maybe just a couple.

Robert (15:44): So here are the good things about being an architect or an engineer. We're usually very good problem solvers. We, we can solve problems. Like we can solve problems. If you're designing a bridge, a highway, a building a tall building, a short building, it doesn't matter. Like we solve problems, we make things with our hands, we build things. So that's always gonna be a huge advantage. It's also sometimes our disadvantage. We overanalyze and we over plan. And sometimes because of that, we might have a tendency of not starting.

Robert (16:20): So I think my, my biggest advice that I think, like, I don't, you know, I don't know everyone here, I'm over generalizing, you know, advices here. But sometimes it's really, really important to practice being naive and, and put yourself back as a student, right? Like, you're, you're 18, 19 years old, you know, nothing. You're on campus and you're given a project and you just go. I think sometimes we hold ourselves back 'cause we overanalyze, we overplan we know too much, we know too much risk. And at the end of the day, we might never start because of that. And that's a huge problem.

Isaac (17:03): Hmm. Well it sounds like you're always learning, you're always adapting. I'm sure those are all things that you've taken and applied to monograph. How do you, I guess, get feedback? How are you advancing new things with monograph as if there's new features or you're working with clients that have suggestions, how are you implementing those and maybe what, what is like on the horizon? What's in the future for monograph?

Robert (17:30): So I think a lot of the AI workflows, the copilot workflows that we're working on right now, that will streamline how you engage and work on monograph. Well, all that's new and that's all coming, coming very, very soon. There's also a lot of new features in terms of how architects and engineers work with each other. 'cause I know that for most projects, these two very specific industries have to constantly engage and work with each other. Mm-Hmm . Well, how do we make that more seamless? How do we get a lot of the back and forth that's caught in the inbox an email inbox out and get it way more transparent and way more seamless on my raf. So a lot of those features are actually in beta now. And ideally we're going live in the next coming months.

Robert (18:20): Yeah. That's a huge headache, . Thank you.

Isaac (18:24): That'll be a great problem to solve. Solve

Robert (18:26): Pdfs, change orders, meeting minutes. Just imagine all the things that are in your inbox that are completely all over the place. I, and by no means am I saying that that's gonna be an easy thing to solve. I think we're gonna spend a lot of time thinking about how to design elegant solutions. And that's gonna take time. But that's what keeps the fire burning. I'm, I'm incredibly passionate and I'm incredibly frustrated by how much complications are in terms of pulling off a, a project and how little tools there are in terms of actually solving that problem. So I'm fired up. But it is a very hard problem and it's probably gonna take us some time to get it right. But the North star for me is to get it right. And we, I have a 30, I have a 30 year plan in terms of like, how do we bring on every single person that's within the a EC broader ecosystem into one platform. I believe it started with architects and engineers, but it won't, it doesn't stop there. 'cause Eventually we have to solve a permiting problem, a bidding problem, a procurement problem a GC problem, a subcontractor problem a checkoff problem. Opening day asset management, building and infrastructure lifecycle prop tech at like, it continues and continues and continues. And I hope to be alive long enough where I can solve as much as I can. Well then no problem.

Isaac (20:11): You are definitely a problem solver and you keep finding problems. .

Robert (20:16): I, it's what motivates me. Like, I like to know what's in front, what do I have to solve and go and go get and go get it.

Isaac (20:26): That's awesome. Well, I, I'm you know, this software sounds awesome, by the way. And I'm just curious, as it's been developed, as probably you've gotten feedback from customers using it, what, what are some items that maybe bring you joy in working at Monograph and what you're doing with it?

Robert (20:47): I spend a lot of my time talking to people who are not customers. And I spend a lot of my time talking to people who are customers. And that brings me a lot of joy. Like, it, it allows me, well, one, it's validation that like, I'm working probably hard on something that's meaningful. The last thing I wanna ever do is to do work that's not meaningful. So it brings me a lot of joy knowing that our customers love it and that we're, we have their back. And I think that's what makes monograph really, really special. I believe that that's what makes monograph really, really special for not just the team here but for me.

Isaac (21:28): And is monograph geared towards kind of a medium sized firms, small firms, large firms, everything? Like what, what's the what's the target for, for monograph in the software use?

Robert (21:40): So generally speaking, if you have employees you probably need monograph. So that can be as small as like a two, three or a five person firm. All the way to about a hundred. Anything more than a hundred we're probably not the right fit yet. And there's certain reasons. Why would you get to a certain size? Most of the industry, you're either, you're probably in multiple offices. Mm-Hmm . Which overcomplicates things if you're multiple offices across multiple countries. Well, that makes it really hard. 'cause You can imagine we have to solve for multi-language and multi-currency. Not unsolvable. We will get there, but we're not quite there yet. So those are the things that, in terms of like ranges as as soon as you have employees all the way to about a hundred, our sweet spot is really for firm sizes that are anywhere between 10 and 20.

Isaac (22:40): Okay.

Robert (22:40): Yeah.

Isaac (22:41): And there's probably a ton of them out there that are that size ,

Robert (22:45): 90% of the industry, if not more are actually small firms. Small firms in this categorization will be like employee size of less than 20 people.

Isaac (22:57): Are you attending conferences? Are you having to travel quite a bit to spread the, the word? Like what's a, what's a day like in, in Robert's life?

Robert (23:08): I wake up incredibly early. I'm up, I'm up sometime around five in the morning and I'm on the computer by six. I live in California, so 6:00 AM California time is 9:00 AM Eastern. So I wake up really, really early. I have a lot of meetings that ranges from our sales team, our product team, our engineering team, or customer success team. And now run leadership meetings once a week. I'm in a lot of meetings whenever I'm not in meetings. You're right. I am on the road. I'm either at a industry type of conference or I'm traveling to Phoenix where we're starting a new office where we're building our sales team out of Phoenix right now. So I'm actually in Phoenix quite often.

Isaac (23:58): Man. Busy guy, Robert, thanks. Thanks for sharing all of your wisdom. I think this has been a really interesting, I mean, your own personal life story is, is interesting. We could do a whole nother episode on that. But it, it's truly inspiring where you've came from where you've come from and what you've been doing with Monogram. I think it's super inspirational. So we would love to link stuff. So, you know, if people wanna see this, a demo of it or get a hold of you or the company, what's the the best way to kinda do that?

Robert (24:32): Well the best way is to visit our website. It's really easy. It's just monograph, M-O-N-O-G-R-A-P h.com. If you wanna reach me, it's just my full name. So it's Robert dot U-N-Y-U-E [email protected].

Isaac (24:49): And before I close this, I have to ask, how did we come up with the name?

Robert (24:54): Oh . Yeah. I love this name because it means so much to the industry. As you can imagine, any engineer or any architect at the end of their career, they have a monograph. They have like a body of work that they're proud of. It was a domain that me and my co-founders, we, we came up with when we, when we started the business. And accidentally, we just liked it so much because it has so much meaning for the industry. Other than that, it was a game was, it was a very happy accident that, like, I love, I love the word monograph. We started with monograph.io and then we were very fortunate enough to have bought do.com also.

Isaac (25:43): That's great. Yeah. Okay, we're gonna leave all the, the links in our show notes, so make sure everyone has access to that. Go check it out. I think it's a, a fantastic tool, so we wanna spread the word about it. But Robert, thank you for joining me today on the podcast. Appreciate you doing this.

Robert (25:59): Thank you for having me.

Isaac (26:01): All right, we'll talk to you later.

Isaac (26:02): Thanks.