Revolutionizing roof replacements instantly - PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Jeff Berzolla of Instant Roofer. You can read the interview below or listen to the podcast.

Intro: Welcome to the AskARoofer Podcast, where all your roofing questions find their answers.

Your hosts, Megan Ellsworth and Lauren White, peel back the layers of the roofing world to reveal the knowledge, tips and FAQs you've been curious about. From shingles to skylights, metal to asphalt, we are here to demystify the system above your head. Get ready to ask, learn and explore the fascinating world of roofing one question at a time on the AskARoofer Podcast.

Hello, everyone, my name's Megan Ellsworth.

Lauren White: And I'm Lauren White.

Megan Ellsworth: And this is the AskARoofer Podcast. Welcome back.
I'm so excited, Lauren, we have a great guest today, Jeff with Instant Roofer. Hello, friend, how are you?

Jeff: I'm well. Thanks for having me guys. How are you?

Lauren White: Doing well.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah. Excited to chat. Jeff, just tell us a little bit about you. What's your story?

Jeff: Sure, sure. I think the thing on most of these podcasts that gets everyone excited is that I live in Hawaii, so that's always a weird one, a national roofing company out of Hawaii, so that's been fun. But my background a bit, I'm from New York originally and I'm an online marketing and artificial intelligence expert. I've been in the roofing and solar industries for about 10 years now helping contractors with many things, software, marketing, business overall.

And we've been running Instant Roofer now for about two years, trying to collect all the different tools and requests that roofers and homeowners have been bringing to us to try to make things more efficient and everyone happier, I suppose, in our disjointed industry that's ever-growing and evolving.

Lauren White: Just to get us started, we know a little bit about you, but tell us about Instant Roofer. What is it? What can homeowners expect out of it?

Jeff: Sure. Yeah, Instant Roofer is a place where homeowners can instantly measure their roof and get an estimate on the cost to replace their roof with the most common roofing materials being installed in the United States. The best part is, after getting that estimate, they can be connected with the best roofer in their area to do that work on their home. Not only does our AI instantly measure their home, but it also connects them with a local contractor that has the best price and crowdsourced reviews to do that work.

We're seeing a pretty big demand. Contractors are signing up. We just had our 40,000th contractor join the system, so people are joining like crazy and we're generating lots of homeowner requests for estimates. We're really excited with the growth of the technology and the service we're providing.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow, that's amazing. 40,000, that's a big number.

Jeff: It is, it is. It's crazy how fast it's going. I think when contractors in particular hear about our services ... because a lot of what we offer is for free. We're trying to provide a great service for homeowners, and then in this industry there's, from a contractor standpoint, a lot of I'd call it snake oil of where they can get leads and connected to quality homeowners that are trying to do work. I think we've really hit a sweet spot in what we're providing.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. How do you partner with roofing companies so they can use this tool for their customers?

Jeff: Yeah. Like I was saying, 40,000 contractors are in our database and we make it free for them to join because we want their pricing and their review information and that's really what's of value to the homeowners. Once that's entered into the system, they are in our algorithm to get leads from homeowners and our AI is constantly out there scanning the internet to find more contractors and encourage them to join with their pricing. The latest number I've seen is that there's about a 100,000 contractors in the United States alone, so trying to weed through them and then once they upload their pricing and review information, that homeowners can easily not only measure their home and find what it would cost to put, as an example, a standard asphalt shingle on their roof, but who are the local folks that can do that best? There's a sea of information out there and we make it simple.

Lauren White: That's great. And so, besides being a free tool, how does Instant Roofer make a homeowner's roof replacement journey easier?

Jeff: It's free for contractors to get in there, but it's also free for homeowners. If you go on the internet right now and try to go to the standard roofing contractor's website, it's what I would call, from an internet marketing standpoint, 1999. There's a contact form, which is not really what users nowadays are looking for. Everything needs to be mobile-friendly, fast and of course, what's it going to cost? The typical homeowner wants that information.

And what we see is that, when contractors come to our site and enter that information and then also we have an app for them to install our tech on their site as a contractor and when that happens, conversion rates go up. Clearly, again, we're in the right place at the right time for the homeowners wanting pricing information. We call it T-shirt rough estimates.

It's not like we're saying it's going to be $19,408 to replace your roof, but rather it's 18 to $21,000. That information alone, for a homeowner, I think is super important. They can toggle within our app, within the various types of common roofing materials and then, at that point in time, see who would be the best contractor for that material and connect with them. That, I think, takes a lot of stress and time off the homeowner through the early stages, what I would call the discovery stages of trying to find a roof, so really putting it all in one place. Data, we said get three estimates, so you can go on our website and quickly punch through that and making sure that who we're showing you is qualified, has the best pricing, has great reviews, et cetera.

Megan Ellsworth: That's so nice, because who wants a lot of random people coming into your home to figure out that estimate? And you could just do it right online. That's so convenient for people.

Jeff: Yeah. And I don't think we've killed the kitchen sit-down, to be honest. I have some contractors that are like, "We always want to talk to our customers and want to be able to really get in front of them and sell the value proposition of what makes us unique." And I don't think that's going away. I think it's just getting sped up that homeowners can find the contractors that are a better fit for them, and then, when they decide to welcome someone into their home, that that person is really qualified. It's not more of a sales job. It's more of a last round of interviews, I would say. It speeds up the contractor side of things too, but for the homeowners is really ... I think that's a big lesson to the contractors is we come at the industry from the homeowner perspective.

What's going to make the homeowner more efficient, more comfortable, happier, feel like their hard-earned money is spent wisely with someone who is going to provide great service.

I think that alone speeds up the process for the homeowners quite a bit, gives them more security and validity. Another thing we do as an example, I think we have over a dozen different certifications and accreditations that contractors now can click off, such as, duh, Google reviews, but other things like the Better Business Bureau, which shingle manufacturer that that contractor is in and what level of sophistication that contractor is in. A lot of things that homeowners wouldn't necessarily know, we help filter contractors and show that information on our website to homeowners so they can make a better, more informed choice and therefore more [inaudible 00:08:03].

Lauren White: And just having that knowledge even ahead of time, knowing what that price range is going to be even before you start meeting with contractors so you're not completely floored, yeah, you have an idea. Yeah.

Jeff: Yeah. It's a huge deal. We don't know. As the typical homeowner, if you do this every 10 years, every 15 years, it's not like you know in the back of your head what it's going to cost to replace your roof or what even the most cutting-edge products are. In the solar space, things are changing so rapidly, pricing is changing so rapidly, to making sure that you're getting a more common or modern, well-tested material, I think that's really been important to homeowners too.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, yeah. And you talked about how this speeds up the whole process, which I think is really cool the way you said it. You're not killing the kitchen pitch, it's just speeding up the process. Could you, for the homeowners out there that don't really know the process of getting a new roof or the replacement process, how is this speeding it up?

Jeff: Yeah. Well, every contractor is a little different, but there are some tenets in the industry. One of the first things that the contractor needs to do is measure your roof, and there are several standard, very well-established softwares and companies that provide that to contractors. We enter into the market in a free instant measurement using all the latest artificial intelligence tools, so really helpful. The contractors have an idea that Joe Blow at 123 Main Street has a home that's roughly 2,500 square feet and enable that whole process to happen more quickly for them. That's step one, a measurement. Step two is what type of roofing materials do you want? Our site currently has about 10 different common roofing materials in plain homeowner speak, like an asphalt shingle.

Most contractors wouldn't speak in those terms. They'd be talking about the actual manufacturer of the shingle, the warranty, the wind ratings, things like that, which is all super important, potentially done at the kitchen table, but from a homeowner, they're like, "I need a new asphalt shingle roof," is step one. Things like warranty, color even, come second to the homeowner.

They're just looking initially. Our tech brings all that to the table, measurement, the material and then, of course, the price. Those are the three big pillars that any contractor will go through with a homeowner.

And then there's all the details, warranty, color, like I was saying, time that it's going to take to install. And then there does need to be, in my opinion, a on-site visit for things like ingress and egress to the house, power lines, how do we get a dumpster in there to pull the roofing material off? There's a lot of secondary pieces. That's why we provide a band of an estimate so that homeowners don't feel like there's been a bait and switch. Sometimes contractors don't really know until they even climb up on the roof, do you have one layer of roofing material that needs to be ripped off to put the new roof in there, two, three? And that, of course, markedly changes the cost to the homeowner, but we're really trying to help in, again, what I'm calling the early discovery phases of the process, get the homeowner to be better informed, the contractor to be better informed.

Contractors really like our leads because, one, they're exclusive. We only connect one homeowner with one contractor, and of course, as a homeowner, you can go and select to be connected to multiple, but currently, industry ... I like to call it a dumpster fire where lead generation is just insane. As a homeowner, they don't know where they're putting their information in. They're getting, on a minimum, four different pings from contractors, sometimes 16.

Our tech is also just, again, designed to do the right thing, be homeowner-centric, one-to-one connection with a contractor, all these things. I think that's how our growth is happening is that we have a solid product that's not meant to just squeeze money out of either side of the equation, but to provide great service.

Megan Ellsworth: That's so nice. That's so nice. I love the one-on-one, the one-to-one. You're not having to sift through all these different companies in your area. That's really smart.

Jeff: Yeah, it's nice to use the AI to do that. It's using a lot of things, like, duh, the other proximity to your home. That's a big deal. You don't want a contractor that's 500 miles away. But even just seeing the crowdsourced reviews, mostly from Google. Google does a really nice job evaluating contractors, and to me, if you don't have a curated list of reviews, you haven't been in business for a long time, I think those are things that count in the AI tools negatively against you. And for those people that have been doing this for a while and have great reviews, that's information that we're passing to homeowners. And they can connect with multiple contractors too, because sometimes you'll see a contractor that hasn't been in business for a long time, but does have a few good reviews and has great pricing. Maybe a homeowner will give that person a shot. But it all being in one place where you don't have to be spending hours searching and looking is, I think, a huge advantage to our tech.

Lauren White: Yeah, definitely. Okay, we've mentioned maybe asphalt roof so far and solar roof, but what calculators are available to homeowners to use?

Jeff: Yeah. What's cool about the tech is, when you're in there and you enter an address as a homeowner, you can then, after it instantly measures your roof and figures out how many squares, that's the lingo, of course, in the roofing industry of material are needed with waste and pitch and things like that, you can toggle instantly between four main materials that are on the site. There's the standard shingle, which we just call an asphalt shingle, again, trying to speak to homeowners in more of a homeowner-centric phraseology.

There's a more advanced or higher-rated asphalt shingle called the designer shingle that they can look at. There's also metal roofing, which most contractors would not refer to a metal roof as a metal roof, there's different types of metal roofing, but again, a homeowner's just like, "Roughly, what's it going to cost for that cool metal roof?"

And then we go to the other side of the spectrum where we have almost every single Tesla-certified installer is in our technology. We offer a Tesla solar roof pricing option, which also is really cool because it shows you the energy savings you'll have over the lifetime warranty of that product. That, we're seeing a lot of growth in that. But even just for homeowners to be able to say, "Oh, this is my home, this is roughly how big my roof is," and see the pricing instantly amongst those four different products, it's resonating with homeowners.

But, beyond that, the amount of roofing materials, we offer about 10 currently on our site, Instant Roofer, things like flat roofs for commercial. There's a whole bunch of others in there, like cedar shakes, copper roofing, some more interesting stuff that's in there, but there's about 10 of them that you can go and look at what it would cost to put that on your home. And then, additionally, we provide our technology for free to roofing contractors to install on their sites. And what we're seeing there is that a lot of the contractors are putting more customized materials. They'll use the brand name of GAF or CertainTeed and they'll be able to create any sort of a custom material that makes sense to their brand and their user base. But if you're coming to instantroofer.com as a homeowner, there's about 10 of them, from Tesla solar roof and solar panels all the way to a standard asphalt single.

Megan Ellsworth: That's super cool. It's cool that the contractor can customize it to what they do. If they do mainly metal, they can have different metal options.

What if someone, a homeowner, needs a new roof and they find a roofing contractor they like and they don't have Instant Roofer on their website, but they want to get an estimate just to get this process started. What can they do?

Jeff: Yeah. A lot of contractors are furiously trying to install our tech on their site. It's easy to do, but we're busy. A lot of roofers, as you guys probably know, reboot their marketing and product offering in the slower months, in the winter. We do have that. A lot of contractors are trying to put it on their site, haven't quite gotten to it yet. We also have several other products they can put on their website to provide more stability and verification to homeowners, like a contact form, which is coming out this week.

But, if they don't have it, the homeowner can come to our site and take a look. We probably have, if it's anywhere, again, 40,000 out of 100 use ... the 40,000 that are in our tech tend to be more of the more sophisticated middle to upper-level contractors in the industry. But they can come to our site and they can run their home and they can look at the pricing there to get a general idea. It might be an amalgamation or a summary of several other contractors in their area, but it'll give them an idea, again, a T-shirt size that they can bring back to that contractor and then get an exact quote. We distinguish our technology is about estimates, and after you go through that process and you connect with a contractor, they will get you an exact quote.

Lauren White: That's an important distinction to make. An estimate and a quote are very different

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, [inaudible 00:17:31] details of every home's different. There could be trees overhanging the property that needed to get trimmed. There's all these expenses that you don't know until you do an on-site.

Lauren White: Absolutely. Yeah. And so, in addition to your 10 calculators that you offer on your site, you also have a really robust blog. Can you tell us more about what homeowners can find in your blog?

Jeff: Yeah. What's fun is, again, a combination of AI and then we really push hard on both contractors and homeowners for feedback of what are your questions, what can we do to make things better? We do have a pretty robust blog. It's divided into two main categories of information for contractors.

There's a resource center in there, and then homeowners. There's two different ways you can look at it. It's really been a growing part of our site where you can come and educate yourself on even things like do-it-yourself for homeowners to see minor repairs that you could do, common questions that you should ask to contractors about things like insurance, time to be installed, if things go wrong, really focusing on making sure homeowners feel comfortable with the technology and the contractor we're connecting them with.

And this is a big investment for people. It's thousands of dollars. The blog really helps with that, links to our other calculators that we haven't mentioned yet, like our financing calculator to find out, if you're going to be doing that for your home, to get you a rough idea of what it'll cost you per month, as well as other stuff. Maybe on the contractor side, there's an auto pitch calculator, all these cool tools that our technology has developed and lets you play around with.

Megan Ellsworth: You should dive into those new other benefits that you have and tools that homeowners can use.

Jeff: Yeah. It's interesting because, when we first came out with our calculator tech and allowed contractors to install it on their site, we talk a lot about having this in addition to a contact form, I'm talking a little bit more about contractors now and what we found is that most contractors don't really understand how to optimally position themselves and talk to homeowners about why the homeowner should trust them with accreditations certifications and things like that. Our tech now asks contractors when they sign up of like, "Well, which shingle manufacturer do you install? What level of a professional are you in the hierarchy?", things that homeowners wouldn't really know to ask and we then show that on our tech. And what we found is that, when contractors install that version of the calculator and now our contact form that's coming out, their conversions go up because homeowners are like, "Oh, you are a Better Business-certified contractor. Oh, you have 500 five-star reviews."

It's these things that have really helped homeowners figure out who's the right contractor for their home, and then contractors figure out how to market themselves properly. And then with all the telephone and consumer protection restrictions coming to the industry next year, our tech allows contractors to make sure they're abiding by those regulations and then for homeowners, again, to not get swamped with ... I've seen homeowners get 16 contractors fighting for their business from filling out one form on Angie or Home Advisor or something like that. We cut through all that and just let people have more of a virtuous way that we all wish business worked.

Lauren White: Yeah. In addition to those benefits, how does Instant Roofer help homeowners select a qualified roofer? Is it because it's that one-to-one connection?

Jeff: I think it puts the power to the homeowner. We probably need to do a better job telling them that's what's going on. We're thinking of changing some of our UI, because it is pretty clear, but it doesn't punch you in the face that it's really just a one-to-one connection. I think that's an important thing. But I think some of the other tools we talked about, the finance calculator, we're starting to see more homeowners go over there next of like, "Oh, it's 19 to $22,000 to replace my roof, but if I were to get a loan for this installation," which is quite common, "what would it cost me per month?", making sure that they understand that the tools are so intuitively easy to use, crazy accurate.

What's cool about our AI is that it gets smarter each passing day. You come into the tech and measure your home and get a rough estimate and a list of contractors today, and if you come back in a month, it will be different because the tech is smarter. It's able to measure your roof and the pitch more accurately. It might have new information about contractors. We tend to update particularly review and pricing information almost in real time, so that if anything changes in your market, that you're still being connected with the most accurate information.

I think that's really the main benefits. I really like to go back to just the mobile phone, that it works on a mobile device. I wrench on a lot of contractors websites as a consultant, and some of them have 80% of the traffic is mobile, so simple things, but logical of that the site works, you can navigate it as a homeowner, it's on your mobile device and that you can get a rough estimate so rapidly. I think that's the main part of what we offer to homeowners, and of course, making sure that you're connected with someone that's qualified and has great pricing and reviews.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Is there anything new on the horizon for Instant Roofer? I know you're releasing the contact form soon. Anything else?

Jeff: Yeah, the contact form's a big deal because it really focuses on the certificates and accreditations for contractors and it's a win-win on both the contractor and the homeowner front. Contractors, again, don't necessarily know what resonates with homeowners and we do because we work with thousands of contractors, but then homeowners, even just to see that information and know, "Oh, you've got eight accreditations," of which you recognize, as a homeowner, three of them, versus another contractor who might not. That's been really big. But, yeah, the big news that we're working on now, a lot of people ask, particularly in the contractor side of the business, "How is this free? Yeah. What? This is a lot of technology you guys have built here." It's been working out great. We're very happy with the results if you see how many contractors have joined our system and the amount of homeowners using the system, I think we're five times bigger this month in '24 than we were last year, so things are working out.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Crazy.

Jeff: But the next things that are coming, our true North Star as a company, is taking roof orders online. When you talk about all this great information, instant measurements plus instant pricing plus review information, what all that sums down to is contractors are ready to accept, but probably, more importantly, homeowners want to be able to put down a deposit on their roof and we are doing that. That's in beta for a couple of different contractors we work with. We're going very slowly, there's a lot of money involved here and our main thing is having security for homeowners that, through the process, they're protected and providing a great product. But that's coming next. Probably in Q1, it'll start rolling out nationwide on our site and then I see a lot of contractors embracing it on their websites as well.

Megan Ellsworth: Wow. Amazing. That is exciting. Five times bigger than this time last year, that's incredible.

Jeff: Yeah. Yeah, we're excited about it. Well, it's partnerships and opportunities like this that help us grow and I really appreciate you guys having me on and talking about the tech and making sure homeowners know about it and contractors alike.

Lauren White: Absolutely.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Jinx. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're so excited to have you on, and all the contractors out there go to rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more and then all the homeowners and building owners out there looking to use this technology and get a free estimate, go to askaroofer.com, you can find out more information or instantroofer.com. Is that your website, Jeff?

Jeff: That's our website, yes. Thank you for the plug. I appreciate it.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Well, Lauren, this has been a great episode.

Lauren White: Yeah, definitely, learned a lot about estimates and calculators and making homeowners' lives easier.

Jeff: Yeah, right on. I appreciate you guys having me on. And, like I said, that contact form's coming out for contractors soon, but it would be nice to have an opportunity to come back on when our roof order online technology is going and have you guys kick the tires on that and let us talk a little bit more about how that takes the ease of the homeowner experience and makes it even further, I would say even almost to the finish line. Excited for that coming out soon.

Megan Ellsworth: Absolutely. Yay. Well, thank you so much, Jeff, for sharing all this great information. Everyone out there, again, go to instantroofer.com, askaroofer.com Or rooferscoffeeshop.com to learn more and we will see you next time on the AskARoofer Podcast.

Wow, that was a great episode, Jeff.

Lauren White: I know, Instant Roofer-

Megan Ellsworth: Loaded, yeah.

Lauren White: ... so much stuff going on.

Megan Ellsworth: They have so many things that are just game changing for homeowners, and contractors, which is really great.

Lauren White: And it's all free. It's amazing.

Megan Ellsworth: I know. It is amazing.

Lauren White: Free to access, free to use, free for contractors to put on their own sites, 10 calculators. That's wild.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, and customizable.

Lauren White: Customization? Contractors can customize?

Megan Ellsworth: Yes, you can customize.

Lauren White: Customize.

Megan Ellsworth: You can customize all your different calculators, so that's cool, when you add it to your website. And so, that way, homeowners, if they want a metal roof, if they want cedar shake or whatever, you have it there on your website. That's awesome.

Lauren White: Right, and using AI, artificial intelligence, it's here, it's the future, it's not going anywhere anytime soon and they're learning how to use it to help you instantly get an estimate for your roof. And it gets smarter, like Jeff was saying, it gets smarter every single day, let alone a month from now. The information is just constantly getting more and more updated and refined, and it's crazy, really.

Megan Ellsworth: You said, during the episode, it's really important to differentiate that it's a free estimate and I thought that was a really good point, because that is a really important differentiation because you don't want to go in assuming that the estimate that you're given from Instant Roofer is going to be the end quote because it's probably not, but it'll be in the ballpark. You can prepare financially and figure out what you need to do, get your credit card limit higher or whatever, talk to your insurance. That's really nice, because having a roof replacement is a really big project and one that will hopefully last the next 20, 30 years. You want to go in prepared with all of your ducks in a row and having all the information. This is just really cool that they are giving this to homeowners and contractors to have.

Lauren White: Right. And so you don't go in meeting with a contractor having that phone call with any sticker shock of when they tell you the range of ... I think Jeff used the example of 19 to 22,000. It's like that's a lot of money. Knowing ahead of time what that range might be and knowing that it should fall within that range, depending on the quote from the contractor. And I also love that they partner with qualified, reputable contractors as well with-

Megan Ellsworth: So nice

Lauren White: ... providing those leads so you're not overwhelmed or having to sort through and figure out who's insured and who's a legitimate business, which still do your homework and get multiple quotes, but you can trust Instant Roofer.

Megan Ellsworth: Yeah, this helps narrow it down and also, it's so nice that they give you one contractor option. Even if there's multiple in your area that they work with, they'll give you one that works best with you, which is so nice, you don't have to sift through and then you take that free estimate to the contractor and if you're not vibing with them, you do it again and you work with the next guy, next girl, next gal. And I think that's nice. You don't have to go through 10 contractors before you hit one you like.

Lauren White: Seriously. Yeah. It's always recommended, what, about three, get a range of three contractors. But, yeah, having those instant ones that you can call on is awesome. And they have some fun stuff that they're working on too.

Megan Ellsworth: I know.

Lauren White: I know. You might have to listen to the whole episode to hear about that, but, I know, more perks and benefits to homeowners and contractors, but ... yeah.

Outro: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this is a great episode. I hope everyone enjoys, and we'll see you on the next one on on AskARoofer.

If your roof needs answers, subscribe now to the AskARoofer Podcast. We've got your questions covered, one episode at a time. Go to askaroofer.com to submit your questions and learn more. Stay tuned, and keep those questions coming.