Ep. - 06 - How Trust Builds Better Homes: Project Management Real Talk

Alex sits down with Marty Brodsky, a project manager at BUILDWELL who’s spent the last decade going from sweeping floors and laying Ram Board to running some of Boulder’s most impressive custom home projects.

Together they unpack what actually makes a custom home project succeed (or completely fall apart): the “blame matrix” around budgets, why going with the lowest bid almost always backfires, and how trust between client, architect, designer, builder, and trades is the real foundation of any great build.

They get into the often invisible side of value in construction - things like insulation, details behind the drywall, and risk management - then zoom out to talk culture: toxic “assholes and elbows” mentality, burnout in the trades, lost camaraderie on site, phones at lunch, private equity–driven development, and why knowing your painter as a human (not a spreadsheet line item) changes everything.

• Why lowest bid ≠ best value (and how horror stories really start)

• The “blame matrix” and how to avoid finger-pointing on your project

• Trust as the core currency between clients, builders, and trades

• The hidden value of things you’ll never see once the drywall goes up

• How the trades get a bad rap - and what a healthier culture could look like

• Community, generosity, and what it means to “build cool sh*t with even cooler people”