Shreesha Ramdas, founder of construction workforce platform Lumber, explains why large construction companies struggle with administrative compliance when using legacy payroll systems like ADP.
“So, to give you an idea, a construction company that has billion dollar revenue. They have about six workers who manually reconcile all the compliance and regulatory stuff that's mandated. They are dealing with about 40 unions.”
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More from Shreesha Ramdas
PredictionOpen · timeframe Nov 2031
Ramdas: 41% of the Construction Workforce Will Retire in Six Years
“The industry is in a crisis, and to get you to understand the size of that, that problem, about 41% of the workforce will retire in next six years.”
Shreesha RamdasNov 14, 2025▶ 5:54How Startup’s Should Find REAL Customer Pain w/ 4x Founder Shreesha Ramdas (Lumber)
Disclosure
Ramdas hired sales and marketing leads before building Lumber's first product
“Few things that I did differently in lumber is once I narrowed down the problem that I'm going after, I just didn't go out and hire engineers.
I hired engineers, but I also hired a salesperson.
I also had a marketing person with me.”
Shreesha RamdasNov 14, 2025▶ 18:12How Startup’s Should Find REAL Customer Pain w/ 4x Founder Shreesha Ramdas (Lumber)
Insight
Ramdas: Network design partners give founders biased, overly agreeable feedback
“If I'm going and getting design partners in my network, because they, there's some prior relationship, they are biased to give me feedback that I like to hear.”
Shreesha RamdasNov 14, 2025▶ 20:01How Startup’s Should Find REAL Customer Pain w/ 4x Founder Shreesha Ramdas (Lumber)
Insight
Ramdas: Early startup teams should never receive market salaries
“Even if a founder has raised multiple early rounds, Sid, ah, the founder, the exec team, and the larger team should never be paid the market salary.”
Shreesha RamdasNov 14, 2025▶ 22:54How Startup’s Should Find REAL Customer Pain w/ 4x Founder Shreesha Ramdas (Lumber)
Insight
Ramdas: Founders should avoid humility when storytelling to investors
“I would say don't bring humility into storytelling. Be unapologetic about it. Present that grand vision and demonstrate passion.”
Shreesha RamdasNov 14, 2025▶ 25:33How Startup’s Should Find REAL Customer Pain w/ 4x Founder Shreesha Ramdas (Lumber)
PredictionNot checkable as stated
Ramdas: In an AI world, manual workers will be valued even more
“In this AI world, People who work with their hands will be valued even more. And that's where there's an opportunity to dramatically transform how construction industry operates.”
Shreesha RamdasNov 14, 2025▶ 26:20How Startup’s Should Find REAL Customer Pain w/ 4x Founder Shreesha Ramdas (Lumber)
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