Part XV: Busted at Bahama Breeze
Finally, we would know if we won the business, when we were summoned to a Bahama Breeze restaurant outside Atlanta. Had we been busted for showing “not ready for prime time” software, defying MiTek policy? Over lunch we were told that ITW had been seated at the same table a week prior, and had proposed two different (competing) paths for Home Depot Supply (HDS)* – either the Truswal IntelliBuild program or the Alpine View software. HDS chose us because, with ITW, they had a 50% chance of choosing software that ITW would ultimately make obsolete. At least with MiTek, HDS believed they were choosing the solution to which we were totally committed. Ironically, we might have lost this battle had it occurred in most other venues. To our benefit, Atlanta was one of the last largely stick-framed markets and our EWP design tools were far more useful than ITW’s panelization capabilities.
No matter how we won, this was not a minor victory, but a validation of seven years of challenging software development. And this win helped us get over the hump. We gained a desperately needed client to prove the viability of an unproven program.
With this successful launch of MiTek’s whole house software in 2007, this series on 50 years of truss design has come to a conclusion. Home Depot/ProBuild validated our whole house strategy and, along with other early adopters, gave us the incentive to continue our software investment through the Great Recession. In the following ten years, we have added full panelization capabilities and gained the largest group of new users in our history.
Fifty years of software-driven innovation has enabled this industry to reach unprecedented heights. Though we have a long way to go, we’re definitely not stuck in the Stone Age, as outsiders often say. On the contrary, we’ve poured hundreds of millions into design technology that enables the componentization of the massive wood structures that arise all around us. And, in the process, this technology enriches the careers of the thousands of truss designers who frame them.
*The August article incorrectly identified ProBuild as the prospective client. However, at the time of this decision, Home Depot Supply was the owner. Months later they sold their component business to ProBuild.
Epilogue Next Month:
Designing Great Software