How We Built Gamma AR for the Construction Site with Caner Dolas

Andrea Ciaffi

Hi, John, welcome to the Digital Construction Podcast. In this episode, we sit down with John Dolos, the CEO and co-founder of Gamma AR, an augmented reality platform built for construction professionals. John went from design to founding one of the construction tech's most practical AR companies.

Andrea Ciaffi

Today, we explore how Augmented reality is closing the gap between digital models and physical sites. So this is very exciting because we talk a lot about AR, VR, and in this case, we'll be talking about most about AR. Before we start, John, I have a quick question for you, something I ask all of the guests.

Andrea Ciaffi

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received in your career?

Caner Dolas

I think for me, what I've realized and learned over the years, not only just from one person, is that meaning matters. Meaning is at the end what drives what we are doing and also gives us the energy to do the things when even things are sometimes hard.

Caner Dolas

So in every, let's say, career, in every situation, we will have times where we struggle and not because necessarily we don't like what we're doing, but because we like what we're doing, so we do more. And in this moment, meeting keeps us going.

Caner Dolas

Even further, and that's what I would say.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, that's very useful. And you, like many others, there are so many people that work in this industry, they come from different angles, like they could be engineers, architects, being professionals, and they often maybe dream or think about leaving their daily job and starting something else, right?

Andrea Ciaffi

This is a very common pattern we see, or at least people have the desire.

Caner Dolas

And.

Andrea Ciaffi

But you train and practice as an architect before moving into BIM management and then digital transformation. But what was it about the profession that made you feel like technology was the real lever? to pool.

Caner Dolas

I've been always kind of in this intersection between technology and, let's say, the industry itself. And I would not even say that it started with one specific point. I was always driven by it.

Caner Dolas

Even if I remember in the first year, At university, where we had the first, let's say, cat exercises, I had to I had to push myself over to what what was actually like the exercise and do much, much more, because I was so much interested in in at the end learning or doing.

Caner Dolas

things above what was required in terms of the tech part, because just out of curiosity at the end, too. And I think that is what drove me. Plus, during my university times when I was still studying, I worked at the same time at the Institute of Computer Architectural Design.

Caner Dolas

And that create also like an environment where I would say where it really fostered this behaviour to learn more and to do to experiment more in terms of technology to build stuff that was not there. even trying to build parametric engines with processing at that time.

Caner Dolas

So processing was a solution a long, long time ago. But yeah, maybe it's a short, I can go longer on this, but it's enough now.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. And now at Gamma, you are really working on a project or a product that it's really focusing on the reality, right? You are augmenting the reality. And in the past, you've worked on large-scale projects like airport, hotels. I wonder, where did you see the most painful disconnect between what was designed and what was actually being built.

Caner Dolas

Mm. I think this is general, a general experience that everybody of us in heaven in the industry, right? We go to any kind of project at the end and not everything will be executed in the same way as we had designed or planned it.

Caner Dolas

So as soon as you're on the construction side, you realize things are sometimes different. And sometimes for a good reason, different too, because it's not that the design is always perfect, right? And generally, the experience was...

Caner Dolas

that when you go to the site, there will be now and then optimizations that need to be done, there will be issues because maybe some things have been thought through, or there will be mistakes on site because of, for example, sequencing, coordination, topics and so on.

Caner Dolas

And once you have experienced this by yourself, it's kind of a kind of clear. And then the question is how to resolve it.

Caner Dolas

And maybe as a very visual person, as, let's say, people with an architectural background usually are, it's kind of close as well to be let's say, this is fired to go into the direction, trying to resolve it with augmented reality, because it makes it clear.

Caner Dolas

It's, and also enables humans, so that's one part. Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

You've done many different things in your career, and one of them you've been teaching at the Institute of Computer-Aided Architectural Design. You've been teaching at university, which are very different environment if you compare it with the professional practice. But how did I experience like in University and the Institute of Computer Aided Architectural Design shape how you think about technology or adoption or user behavior.

Caner Dolas

So, there's multiple questions, so let's go step by step into that. First of all, the environment that we had at the institute at that time, it was quite special because it was not like like an environment that you would have in a, let's say, engineering or architectural office, quite different to that because obviously it's an institute, it's dedicated to research and to education, right?

Caner Dolas

So in that context, We had even a bit more of a special environment because the people inside, especially like at that time, Peter Russell, who used to be the professor there, who was now in China, Andre Snigmann, who you might actually also know from the clockwork.

Caner Dolas

as in for for Dynamo, which is quite used all over the industry, and Thomas Dafelos, they were they built like a very beautiful environment where you could just freely think, you freely do basically whatever you're interested in. Yeah, there was some daily tasks like Teaching students and so on, that's that was part of part part of that, but in general we did quite cool stuff.

Caner Dolas

We participated even at that time at a competition for the for the expos in Shanghai even. I had one, so I could travel to Shanghai from university. So that was super cool and work at the expo and kind of guide that. So it all shows basically we had like a very, let's say, open environment to research and think a bit.

Caner Dolas

About what do what kind of problems do we want to solve? So, it has been it was an environment that created at the end like a like an openness to explore, and I think this has basically driven me since then a lot, and...

Caner Dolas

Yeah, so that's that is part of the question. Now, we need to come back to the second part of the question that I am missing out.

Andrea Ciaffi

That's okay, we can skip this part and maybe focus on

Caner Dolas

Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

your BIM career because you also worked as a BIM manager and I just want to pick

Caner Dolas

Yeah, yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

your BIM manager, because when I speak with you, I feel like you can bring so many different perspectives and bring

Caner Dolas

Mm.

Andrea Ciaffi

everything together into something that maybe consistent. consistent and coherent. So when you think about the BIM manager

Caner Dolas

Mhm.

Andrea Ciaffi

role, as a BIM manager, you are sitting between the design intent and the reality that we have on the construction site. And as a BIM manager, what do you think this role reveals about the information, where the information consistently breaks down between the reality and what People see in the office.

Caner Dolas

Well, at the end, we might have, let's say, the perfectly coordinated models, perfectly, let's say, let's just pretend it's error-free and there's nothing, everything's constructable, right? But then you go to the site and we still transmit info. Not everywhere anymore. This is changing now, but there is, we still in, for the most part, transmit information in terms of just printing plans and sending spreadsheets and sending texts.

Caner Dolas

And this kind of makes it harder to stick at the end to what is actually like, as you said, the design intent. So the question is, how do we want to, how can we transmit information as well as possible, as humanly understandable as possible to the people that have to execute?

Caner Dolas

and help them to actually build better and make less mistakes. Because what will happen many times is, and you have definitely the experience too, when you go to the site, There might be coordination issues because somebody came, the plans were not, let's say, as clear as they could be.

Caner Dolas

So somebody just, let's say, one trade went just directly through instead of doing the deviations that they need to do.

Caner Dolas

Or there are sequencing problems, somebody started Earlier than they should have, or at least not in the didn't build in the order that they should have constructed with then, which then leads to more rework, so these kind of things can be resolved by making at the end the, let's say, the..

Caner Dolas

. general language that we use now with the BIM models, that is how I would frame it, and bring this to the fights in a just very intuitive and humanly understandable way, because we don't live in an abstract world at the end. Our world is at the end very, very clear.

Caner Dolas

We are living in a let's say, at least four-dimensional worlds in this. And in our case, we can sense this information and transmit the information much better if we just make it kind of unambiguous for the people who have to execute it.

Caner Dolas

And then if there's mistakes or things that need to be discussed, they can catch them early on too, because then they have then the possibility to directly understand, hey, here, we will have a problem.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and yeah, to expand on this, I think if you speak with most B managers, they will tell you like, it also depends on which LOD they are working on. They will tell you that most model very rarely makes it makes it to the site in a usable form, right?

Andrea Ciaffi

Sometimes you hear, be managed to say that the builder just took the model, chuck it and restart or how did that frustration inform you, inform what you were end up building at Gamma?

Caner Dolas

Mm. Yeah, and I wouldn't necessarily say it's frustration. I think many things that we are doing at Gamma are because of conviction. It's not that me or my co-founder or we were just frustrated about something and such. like, this cannot go. It's more like to understand there is really better ways to do it.

Caner Dolas

And that has been, I would say, the driver of our mission. Because, yes, you might be frustrated about something. Yes, there might be mistakes. That's one way to do it. But sometimes we do things out of curiosity, too, and out of conviction that there is actually better ways.

Caner Dolas

And then we can just jump the step of being, let's say, annoyed by a problem. I'd rather do things because I like that. Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. And with that speaking of conviction, we touched on this at the beginning when I said we know that many people think or dream or aspire to start their own startup, their own company. And co-funding a company, it's a very different kind of commitment, right?

Andrea Ciaffi

Because It's very different from the 9 to 5 work in BIM, for example. What gave you the conviction that specifically augmented reality on construction site was the right problem to go after, rather than any other of the pain points that you may have seen in your career?

Caner Dolas

Mhm. So, in my view, There is definitely, let's say, this beautiful part in augmented reality, which at the end, the AR part, even if it's just like one form of communication, is kind of enabling humans to do more. Yes, of course, we could have gone into directions or there's been, there's a lot of pain points in in all kinds of areas.

Caner Dolas

And you could have we could have also decided to say, hey, now let's do robotics. But in our case, I think the beautiful part about augmented reality is that it helps at the end humans to achieve more. And we basically enable people with the, like, with the, let's say, superpower of four sites.

Caner Dolas

And that has been something that I would say helped or was clear that it would help to solve specific problems on the construction site, especially, let's say, if you have an architectural engineering background and you're coming at the end from the planning and design phases, the topic is always like kind of clear, right?

Caner Dolas

So you want to transmit your design intent to the site and make it executed as closely as it can be in the physical world. And this is something that, yeah, I would say is the reason behind doing augmented reality, making sure that on one side people can execute the designs, the design intent directly, correctly, so you don't have...

Caner Dolas

much problems. But at the same time, meanwhile, you are like building in the process, you can also just, or at the end, the cruise on site and use the tools in order to identify where deviations are and maybe use it as discussion points.

Caner Dolas

And at the end to QFQC with that, or also to track progress with that. And that's just like, let's say, the basis of that. In addition, because we are, in our case, using this beautiful thing that we have now, which are at the end, BIM models, we have the possibility to automate based on the data that comes out of it and analyze that tool.

Caner Dolas

And that's a whole different topic, because now we are able to kind of create a system that uses, yeah, at the end, the information from the models, either to, for example, to say, hey, how much did we complete in terms of volumes of concrete so far?

Caner Dolas

How many? meters or or feet of, let's say, piping that we install. And we can we can get like really good data and then answer the questions that the teams on site have, the project managers have, and then also at the end, the owners will also have.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, definitely. And one of the key challenges that people face when they try to bring new products, especially in the construction industry, bring a new product into the market is the problem related to adoption. How do you tell people this is a great idea, they should be using it, right?

Andrea Ciaffi

So it's very hard. And You move from architecture to be management to product management before you founded Gamma AR. But looking back, which of those roles taught you the most about building products that people actually want to use?

Caner Dolas

I think it's the overall experience, the overall combined experience from all different, let's say, tasks and roles that we have and also your own personal experiences too, right?

Caner Dolas

When you are in the industry for some time and you experience all kinds of, let's say, different fields, you will at the end kind of filter some kind of model of or define some kind of model of reality that that will at the end, yeah, define your decisions in that.

Caner Dolas

And in our case, I think it has been always driven by a few things, which is the always wanted to do solutions that don't require much setup, that are scalable, and at the end are self-explanatory because we are building, in our case, it's not software for robots, it's software for people at the end.

Caner Dolas

So we need to make sure that everybody, the most amount of people can use at the end our software. And that means, also again, in our case, making it just easily understandable, having no requirements for like setting up. on sites, which some solutions do or did in the past as well, which led to, at the end, frustration on site, right?

Caner Dolas

So people don't have the time and you need to respect that, especially on site, people are like under stress, they have a lot to do.

Caner Dolas

So the solutions that we need to create at the end, you need to follow like kind of this philosophy and make sure that at the end, whatever we are doing is being so simple and so quickly to implement that it doesn't it doesn't require a lot of effort.

Caner Dolas

And this is basically what needs to drive, yeah, or what did drive, in our case, our decisions.

Andrea Ciaffi

And an interesting aspect related to augmented reality is the evolution of hardware. Of course, you also need to focus on software, right? So there is 2 aspects. There is the software part and there is the hardware part. Software has always been really good for a long period of time now.

Andrea Ciaffi

But I think, I think the hardware, the hardware side, particularly for AR, has changed dramatically in a very short period of time, and I mean, it's improved, right? So, how is the evolution of these devices shaped what Gamma is actually could could actually build today, and and now?

Andrea Ciaffi

people can realistically use it on site.

Caner Dolas

Maybe it was even helpful for us that at the end, handheld devices like phones and tablets were not the best at the beginning. When we started, we were, let's say, very much restricted and still need to run like massive models on small hardware.

Caner Dolas

And this made us at the end push the limits of what we can do with software to kind of navigate the limitations of the hardware in some ways. And also in terms of, let's say, in our case with AR with positioning. We had to figure out ways to place models on sites in an easy way without, again, needing specific hardware for that.

Caner Dolas

We always set our focus on, yeah, on the biggest impact, so meaning running the system on... handheld devices, phones and tablets that everybody had. So we had to deal with these things. It's true that hardware has developed massively in the last years, especially in the handheld side.

Caner Dolas

I mean, the phone that I have has the same processor as the MacBook that I'm using at the moment here, so maybe that's slightly different version, but it is super performance and that that that play that definitely played a huge role in now being able to handle even more massive.

Caner Dolas

projects and more massive models. But at the same time, there's been also not only like the part about the models. I think companies like at the end Google or especially Apple in this case, they pushed the interaction with the real world even further, because, for example, a normal iPhone Pro now or an iPad Pro, they have all these Lidar sensors attached to it.

Caner Dolas

And this is exactly to interact with the real world. And and we are utilizing them too, to at the end make the experience better on site.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and we've been talking about Gamma IR for a while now, but we haven't said what actually does, right? So how do you actually use Gamma? I think one way to explain what Gamma does is it's about thinking about an actual day for a sub manager or contractor using gamma for the first time looks like.

Andrea Ciaffi

So can you share with us what do they see, what do they do, and what problem gamma does solve for them?

Caner Dolas

Yeah, that's a good example at the end. So let's just say a day in the life of a contractor, that's the NP contractor on the construction site with Gamma AR. It's in quite simple.

Caner Dolas

The foreman would at the end take, let's say, the models that they download into the tablets, go to the site from trailer obviously, then overlay the basic place models on the spot where they are doing currently the work, overlay what will at the end still be built.

Caner Dolas

then basically discuss with the crews on site, okay, we need to, let's say, pull a line in this direction, we need to maybe deviate here a bit. These are the things here. So we have, so everybody is kind of like on board and aligned with the design intent as discussed before.

Caner Dolas

And then they can continue executing this. And then further on, maybe there's an area that is already kind of finished executing, so they can see the place, check if there's any deviations, any maybe mistakes that need to be handled, create issues on site that then can be communicated back at the end if there is any request for information.

Caner Dolas

back to the office too. And let's say some part is already in a stage that they want to report on their progress. So they can just select some objects and say, these ones are completed. And with that, they can at the end inform the project team.

Caner Dolas

and especially also project managers about what's currently happening. So they can then better steer on how the work is executed. And it's not much different from the GC side, because at the end, the superintendents on the side will do similar things. They will just create, you see the site, they will Direct or orchestrate the site at the end, too.

Caner Dolas

No.

Andrea Ciaffi

It looks like, yeah, it looks like quality assurance and quality control are one of the key aspects related to the usage of gamma. And we know that the reward prevention is one of your headline value proposition, right? So it makes total sense because of the products you have built.

Andrea Ciaffi

So Bob, can you share with us how significant is the rework problem in construction and What does the data tell you about how much augmented reality can actually move that number?

Caner Dolas

Yes. So depends on the region, it is varying a bit. But for example, in general, if you compare US, Europe, the rework ranges in average, a range between 5 and 10% of the construction costs. So that means if you have a let's say 100 building, you are wasting between 5 and 10 million just in rework, which is quite a lot.

Caner Dolas

And this can obviously be prevented. And but we have seen from experience from different things that our customers report, especially with the more complex projects like pharmaceuticals, is they can save up to 50% of their rework.

Caner Dolas

And that's what we are hearing consistently, because it helps them to find a lot of, let's say, issues, and especially some of them are very massive, that can reduce this number quite a bit. But that's just one part.

Caner Dolas

It helps also at the end the people on site to be more like at it faster and do let's say the QAQC also or perform this in a much like much faster way because they don't need to interpret things anymore. It's just kind of clear.

Caner Dolas

Plus, because of the overlay on site, it gives you also one additional ability. You are able to coordinate on site as well quite well. And that also reduces at the end, let's say, for the rework, also for the discussion points, and makes all our lives easier.

Andrea Ciaffi

And one of the challenges that in general the construction has is rather to how do you address issues and do you resolve them on site properly and effectively, right? So this is a big challenge in general for the construction industry. And there is this concept of Component-based RFIs, so request for information.

Andrea Ciaffi

Can you share with us what this with what this what this concept mean and and how we how we can actually help with AR?

Caner Dolas

Yeah. And that brings us at the end to what we use as a language. In our case, again, the BIM models that is now shared from the design stage to the construction site.

Caner Dolas

And it has one beautiful aspect, which is there is IDs that are at the end unique to the components that we can at the end use as a As a, that's the identifier between, between, yeah, all the systems, and what that means on site is quite simple.

Caner Dolas

When using augmented reality, we are at the end using these, yeah, these components from the build models in order to. yeah, attach information to that from the site, be it issues, progress information, RFIs at the end. And this information is then, yeah, being able to send for to the right people with the exact location, with the exact objects and people don't need to search anymore.

Caner Dolas

And especially, let's say, if you have experienced the process in the old way before, which is you get a call from the sites and telling you, hey, on the top left corner on room CO2, there needs to be some change done. which top left corner.

Caner Dolas

So you come to a situation where it's harder to explain what happened. And in this case, by using this model-based tools that we have now happily on site, we are able to resolve them and communicate them much easier and with much more precision.

Caner Dolas

And plus in our case, because of the AR part, you have the overlay and you can directly compare and say, hey, this is actually what is the situation on sites. That is how the model should have been. How are we resolving this? And that doesn't mean that one or the other one is right, because again, there's going to be optimizations on site.

Caner Dolas

Not everything's perfect in designs too, or there's some subsequent errors that can lead to changes that we need to handle. But once we did that, it's kind of like... Much easier to communicate, meaning you have much faster resolution times as well.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, it's interesting because there is always this reality that what people see in the office and what people see on site, they represent two different versions of realities and it looks like Gamma AR closes that loop for the teams. Yeah, that's That's really great.

Andrea Ciaffi

You've been building integrations with Autodesk, Procore, BIM Collab, rather than just trying to create a closed ecosystem. You know, like these vendors, so one of the objections that we, the complaints that we often, even in this podcast, is that people say, We have all of these vendors that create their own ecosystem.

Andrea Ciaffi

It's closed, doesn't speak with the other products. They try to create their own file system that cannot speak with other platforms. Then we have entities that try to create IFC files to make sure that everything can speak to each other, right? So this is kind of the the ecosystem we live in.

Andrea Ciaffi

Instead, you drive a different path. You build integrations with all of these products. What was the thinking behind that approach, and what are the trades-offs?

Caner Dolas

Having stood on the other side, it's kind of clear that there is no other way. So basically, our goal is at the end to make sure that the projects that we are participating in, and we are at the end, let's say, we're kind of like a trade in the project too.

Caner Dolas

Let's just say like, or a discipline, or however you want to call it. We are some participant in the project. We want to make sure that these projects are successful. And there are so many different systems in each of the projects. There is no way to have like a data silo and then just have everything.

Caner Dolas

let's say, in one system. It's just, that's not how the projects work, especially on the site. So because of that, it was clear from the beginning. We need to connect to all of the systems, make sure that everybody can keep their processes and we can just, again, work with each other.

Caner Dolas

It would be counterproductive for us if we wouldn't have done this. Plus, again, it's for the projects, that's the right thing to do. So that's what we have focused on.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and we touched on this a little bit at the beginning when we were talking about people have the idea they want to start their own startup. I think there is always that point when you think about adoption, right? And construction is famously conservative with technology adoption.

Andrea Ciaffi

It's a very tough market and probably everybody knows. But when you start the Gamma and you try to bring Gamma to the market, who was actually willing to try it and what was different about these organizations that were happy to try Gamma?

Caner Dolas

So since you are based in Australia, actually one of our first users has been in Australia. Shout out to Dean James, cool guy.

Andrea Ciaffi

Ohh.

Caner Dolas

And I would say the organizations are actually quite, let's say, usually it has been always like, normal organizations, but they had always people inside these organizations that were able to drive at the end the implementation of new technologies or innovation. And I would say could also inspire people.

Caner Dolas

And that played a role. And at the end, all of them are either general contractors or are subcontractors or are owners. That's basically most of the people that we work with. And And at the end, they all have to produce buildings. Yes, there are some companies that do amazingly well, and they have a culture for innovation that is really great inside that.

Caner Dolas

And they built also, let's say, this environment where they brought in people that are again, inspiring and also they have a vision to progress and think forward too. And obviously these ones are the ones that we started working with at the beginning.

Caner Dolas

But what matters most is it's always, it's not necessarily The type of organization, it's how the culture in the organization is that that plays a big role, and how the most of that part is also how the people in this organization are. One of our earliest customers, or some of our earliest customers, were small, very, very small architectural offices, too.

Caner Dolas

And they were, you wouldn't necessarily expect them to jump into this kind of new technologies as well. But here you go. At the end, humans, you must drive this.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, at the end of the day is about people. When in preparation for this interview, I was thinking about all of these people that may want to start their own side project that then becomes a business and then becomes a startup. And these people tend to be technical people, so the idea of selling could be scary for them.

Andrea Ciaffi

And I was wondering, like, I don't know if I should consider you a technical person. Probably you are, because you come from the industry. You are not coming from a sales role. So I wanted to ask you, how do you actually sell AR into a project team where you may be talking to a side of a former project manager, a BIM coordinator?

Andrea Ciaffi

There are so many different roles. They all have different concerns. So how do you handle that situation?

Caner Dolas

I think there's been always two sides to that. We never pushed gamma into people that didn't want to use it. That's not the purpose of us. Most of the time we were lucky enough that it was so clear that people just came to us and we, especially in the beginning, That was basically all of those people.

Caner Dolas

When we were a small team, you don't have the possibility to really do much else than this. And that, at the end, drove step by step our growth. I think What really matters is at the end for people who are skeptical just to try it out.

Caner Dolas

And that's because in all projects, you'll have some people that are,

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm.

Caner Dolas

let's say, super, let's say, hey, I want to try it out. I know it will help me. And there's going to be some people that are like, I've done this for the last 40 years. What does this child tried to teach me.

Caner Dolas

And what we have seen over and over and over again is that as soon as they go together to the sites and experience at the end how it works, and experience the benefits, the skepticism drops quite fast. And that's one part.

Caner Dolas

The other part is how do you, at the end, educate and teach people in a way that they can repetitively continue doing this inside their own companies. So basically, in that way, we are just, we are always like following this notion of train the trainers inside the companies, make sure that there's like a good base of champions that can at the end propagate this forward.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and I can imagine probably at the beginning when you started, it was mostly maybe you or you and the other co-founders trying to sell Gamma, right? But then over time, the sales process, the sales conversation matured and evolved.

Andrea Ciaffi

And If I think about it, you mentioned the skeptic people that they maybe don't believe in the technology, or there are also other reasons why people may not want to try or buy your products, could potentially be just the inertia related to the existing workflow, the attitude where people say, I just want to keep on doing the things I've done.

Andrea Ciaffi

the same way because they are familiar with that process. So did you find that over time, as your product has matured, the sale conversation has changed?

Caner Dolas

Yeah, a lot from the beginning. But the whole industry has matured.

Andrea Ciaffi

Mm.

Caner Dolas

It's not just that the products matured. People have matured. There's been also generational changes that everything has influenced it. And what we can see is BIM models got much, much better. That means that this reluctancy to use Wim models on site also reduced.

Caner Dolas

Our software got better, the hardware got better, the processes are now much more digitalized, especially during COVID that pushed a lot the digitalization as well. So the whole industry moved into one direction. And that really changed the game and really floodgates have been opened.

Caner Dolas

It is, I would say, compared to six years ago, the world is, especially for us, it's very different, feels very different.

Caner Dolas

At that time, you need to deal with, let's say, multiple, let's say, boundaries and maybe models, maybe hardware capabilities and so on that we don't have to deal with today anymore because we have just resolved them either on the software side or now it's partly on the hardware side too.

Caner Dolas

But we pushed all of the things that we can push on our technology, keep continuing pushing this to at the end, yeah, keep with our philosophy, right, making it as simple as possible so everybody can use gamma. So that worked.

Andrea Ciaffi

And sometimes it's very hard to deal with the skeptic people, right? The people that think that they don't want to use these new products. At the same time, you don't want to just dismiss their concerns because you want to address their concerns. And you've probably seen it all, right?

Andrea Ciaffi

All of the different arguments against AR on site. But What's the strongest argument you found against AR on site?

Caner Dolas

That the people have worries that their teams cannot follow up or implement it, and that that is a that is a real worry. Because it comes at the end from the conviction that either maybe the project is too busy, maybe they think they don't have tech savvy enough people with them in the specific team.

Caner Dolas

And it is a wealth concern. It is not that it's not like you cannot overcome it. So what I would say is it really depends on each of the teams, in each of the project teams. But what I've also seen is as soon as you have one, two, let's say more tech savvy people.

Caner Dolas

or digital natives at the end on the project. Usually it's like the people who graduated just shortly before they will do they will do perfectly well and giving them at the end the tools will inspire the rest as well and then then kind of.

Caner Dolas

changes too. And this is the same situation it has been also with the BIM implementation in the past as well. It's just... You need to overcome existing processes and to overcome worries that people might have. And for that, the best way is to just learn how to do it and learn that the reasons why something exists and then see if it can benefit you.

Caner Dolas

And as at the end, everywhere in the world, construction projects are at the end construction projects. They all will benefit at the end from this technology because it's kind of clear.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah. And there is often a gap between what technology promises and what it actually delivers on in the field, right? And sometimes this could be just perception that the users, because maybe they haven't discovered what the tool can actually do or sometimes really see, like it's real, the technology is not delivering what the user expected.

Andrea Ciaffi

How do you make sure that gamma AR doesn't become just another tool that gets used twice and then abandoned?

Caner Dolas

So what's super important is in the conversations that you have with at the end, the people that you will work with in the future that you are sticking to truth and make sure that there is trust. Because if trust fails, then what you explains happens.

Caner Dolas

So the way to at the end ensure that it just doesn't get used once or twice and then gets dropped out is to make sure that the people are educated. So we are doing quite a lot of effort at the end to do that.

Caner Dolas

There's teams that are perfectly handling, let's say, our solution complete on their own. But what we do for teams that have promises, we will go to the sites. So we are very, very, very often at the end on all kinds of construction sites all over the globe.

Caner Dolas

So that's cost us a lot of time. But at the end, it's also kind of beautiful because you learn also something from that, especially how different, let's say, cultures, different areas have different strengths in one or the other areas.

Caner Dolas

Yeah, but when we go to the site, we also help to make sure that people are like, let's say, educated in the best way, that they know, okay, these are the best practices, this is how I should handle this situation. Or maybe sometimes think around the corner because we have seen all the kind of cases, we can direct them a bit better.

Caner Dolas

But that really It helps both sides, I would say. It helps us and it helps also the other team.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and speaking about objections, I was also thinking about maybe there is a company like a builder, there is a, there is somebody who is a champion of technology that people really like to adopt new technologies.

Andrea Ciaffi

There is a lot of these people in these construction companies and sometimes they just find the project director that says we're managed without AR for decades, why do we need it now? So what can this person say to that project director?

Caner Dolas

I would say, just try it out. I mean, there's nothing better than experiencing it yourself, and that will, at the end, remove this thought. It's quite simple. Once you see it on site, it will... It's super clear. The benefits are super clear.

Caner Dolas

And the best way at the end to get the project directors also on board is, let's say you want to drive innovation, you want to drive technology, especially with us. and maybe you are probably you are in the bin team somewhere and you want to make sure that the project is running well.

Caner Dolas

Go to the site, take one of the superintendents with you, let the superintendent use it, and then he will talk to the project director and they know if the superintendent says something that's going to be Not like early adopter requests. It's going to be more like someone that is like very convinced then.

Caner Dolas

And that makes a difference.

Andrea Ciaffi

Yeah, and just to change gear, I want to focus on the company, like the idea of building a construction tech startup through the early growth into a scalable business. It's a big it's a big challenge, it's hard, but you're also you also gone from practitioner to researcher to consultant and finally startup CEO, which is a very exciting role.

Andrea Ciaffi

I think also stressful, but probably a rollercoaster, I'll imagine. But what has been the hardest thing you need to learn that none of these previous roles prepared you for? Because every time you have a new role and and you realize that you didn't know certain things, but what has been the hardest one to learn?

Caner Dolas

When building up a company, what you learn is that all different people in the company perceive the world differently. They really have different, let's say, versions of reality in their minds, which means dealing with all different psyches is really is really challenging. It also teaches you a lot.

Caner Dolas

It also makes you a lot value different perspectives. And it's something that I think I'm very happy that I can experience now, especially in our company, which is a very open company. very communicative company internally and very outspoken too. It's great that we can, that I can experience this.

Caner Dolas

It makes my life sometimes also harder, but also more beautiful. No.

Andrea Ciaffi

Nice, and another key challenge is you're building a product that operates in a market in different markets, different with different level of BIM maturity and digital readiness. Something about what people do in Australia versus certain countries in Europe versus the United States. It's kind of like everybody uses this technology, but with different level of maturity, I would probably imagine.

Andrea Ciaffi

But how do you, but then at the end of the day, you're still trying to build one product to rule them all, right? So it's hard. So how do you build a product and what's a go-to-market approach that works? Across that range of maturity and digital readiness.

Caner Dolas

Yeah. No. How at the end we have handled the product development was actually for us, at least because of the, let's say, usage of the... Okay, I will start again with the question, if it's okay. So... At the end, it's quite simple. On the product side, there's been the variations are more with file types in specific areas that we had to deal with.

Caner Dolas

That means maybe in France, they like to push more the IC topic. If you go to the US, it's mostly Revit and Nevis Works. Some regions have slightly different variations of of whatever, let's say, platforms they're using.

Caner Dolas

So we start at the end with the things where we had to, that had the most impact for us in terms of for the customers that we could reach and at the end developed it in this way. And that's one side. And in terms of how we at the end went to to market in different regions has been always, it's always kind of the same approach.

Caner Dolas

It comes mostly from, I would say, a pull more than a push. It has been always, let's say, bigger general contractors that have complex projects that reach out to us. that we start working with.

Caner Dolas

And then once you have some kind of notoriety in a specific region, it kind of develops by itself too, because then they have seen it in their own region being used, and then step by step this works.

Caner Dolas

Another way that Also, I would say we could connect with the local industry, has been also with local partners that, again, people that are convicted that this makes sense, that maybe have consulting services and then want to use in their projects. And then it goes through them into the either the contractor side or the owner side.

Caner Dolas

So it's kind of always like a network of influencing people. That's just how it has been. But we are lucky enough to being more pulled. then having to really go out and convince people that this is the right way. People, I think, get it very quickly.

Caner Dolas

So that was always good.

Andrea Ciaffi

And as a founder, I'm sure you're always thinking about problems that you may want to solve because it's probably like a trade of personality. People end up being founder of tech companies. And I was wondering, what is the problem if there is one in construction that Gamma AR doesn't solve yet, but that you think about the most?

Caner Dolas

Oh, good question, too. There's actually probably quite a lot, but I think what I would focus on today, at least from what I've learned, is there's going to be labour shortage, or we have going to, we have labour, we have a lot of labour shortage already, it's going to just get much worse.

Caner Dolas

And we need to deal with this. And so probably having or focusing on robotics is not a bad idea in order to navigate these problems that we will have. Because let's say all the experience, especially like all the people that were mastering things on site or craftsmen, they're just getting less and less, and especially the super experienced ones are going to retirement.

Caner Dolas

And we will need to deal with that. We will have to do with less people. more. So that means that that part is, I think, something that needs a resolution. I don't know how fast the robotics side will develop. That's not the area of business where I am in.

Caner Dolas

But I, I just... I just hope that they're fast enough. Yeah.

Andrea Ciaffi

And John, we are at the end of this episode. If people want to reach out to you, where can they find you?

Caner Dolas

So they can reach out to me over at the end of my LinkedIn, or they can just go to our website, which is www..gamma-ar.com, and then just to reach out to us through our system. So yeah, happy to talk to anyone and Yeah, you're all welcome.

Andrea Ciaffi

Thanks for joining us on the Digital Construction Podcast.

Caner Dolas

Thank you so much for the invite, Andrea. It has been a pleasure.