Shreesha Ramdas, founder and CEO of construction tech startup Lumber, discusses positioning and storytelling strategy when competing against legacy software incumbents.
“One thing which every founder should capitalize on is that anything, any company that has stayed on for a long time, their technology is old. They are an old tech stack. And, ah, they, ah, you know, all the workers, especially the newer workers who are coming into the industry, associate anything that's old, that has been for a long time, with a lot of manual steps that needs to be done in order for that solution to work. And so now your story should incorporate all of that element. It should paint a picture of how there is drudgery in, in using that platform. And how you are going to liberate them from that drudgery, from that old school of thinking.”
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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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