Meet Bo Jones, Founder and CEO @ CareerPathway.com / President @ Tru-Built Construction

CareerPathway.com is a web-based platform that gives young professionals the opportunity to discover career paths and network with employers in a social media-like setting. The solution recently played a primary role in the 2025 Governor’s Youth Summit. Jones also spoke at a recent economic development conference on the Omaha-Council Bluffs metro area. 

What inspired you to become an entrepreneur or support other entrepreneurs?

Becoming an entrepreneur was never part of my plan. I went to college to become a financial adviser. But while we were in school, a couple friends and I started remodeling rental properties for local landlords. That work kept us busy for several years, and eventually grew into what is now my first company, Tru-Built Construction.

Looking back, I realize I’ve always been a builder. Whether it’s a home, a company or a tech platform, I like to identify a problem or an opportunity, design a solution and turn it into something real that has impact. That’s what excites me. People often think construction and tech startups are totally different, but in my experience, they both require vision, problem-solving and putting the right people in place to succeed.

We have been blessed with incredible mentors throughout our career: people that we could call anytime and they would give us the best advice they had. I have always appreciated their support and encouragement as it has led us to develop and build some amazing projects along the way. Now it’s our turn to pass that mentorship forward to other aspiring entrepreneurs.  

What advice would you give yourself if you could go back in time to when you were just starting out?

I’d tell myself that good things take time and focus on serving others. We can live in a culture of instant gratification, and too many people give up when they don’t see immediate results for themselves. The truth is, the most successful businesses are the ones that deliver the highest-value product or service to other people. 

We’ve seen it firsthand, where a large percentage of our construction work comes from repeat and referral clients that have helped us grow by simply taking care of them. Some of their projects take a decade to develop from idea to completion, and the success comes from showing up every day, focused on the result and doing things the right way.

During our first few years in business, it would’ve been easy to quit and walk away. We reinvested most of the money back into the company to buy the tools we needed to grow. This left very little income for us personally. The result of investing in ourselves, being patient and taking care of our clients is that we currently generate more revenue every three hours than we did our entire first year in business. 

How do you stay motivated when things feel overwhelming — or stagnant?

Life is what you make of it, and I’m curious to see how much we can accomplish. I’m an Enneagram 8 (Challenger) and my CliftonStrengths are strategic, futuristic, self-assurance, arranger and ideation. I am wired to see the big picture and stay focused on finding solutions. I spend very little time thinking about the past other than learning valuable lessons from it. Growth is part of who I am, and it’s a culture I push to maintain in everything we do.

What is the biggest challenge you’ve overcome and how did you overcome it?

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced has been attracting and retaining talent in my construction business. For years, we poured time and resources into everything we could think of including classroom mentoring, career fairs, advisory boards, even building homes alongside students, and yet we saw little lasting impact. At the same time, hiring in construction was becoming nearly impossible; the demand for workers far outweighed the supply, and it was clear we needed to reach talent earlier and on a much broader scale. There were a few pivot points to face these challenges.

I came to realize that we were not alone in the struggle to find talent. This was a broader problem that seemingly every industry was facing, even the education system finding students.

The turning point came when I watched my own daughter, Taylor, struggle to make one of the biggest decisions of her life in choosing her own career path without the tools, exposure or guidance she needed. That was when I realized the real problem isn’t a shortage of talent. The problem is that the talent we need doesn’t even know that our opportunities exist or how to find them.

To solve it, I built CareerPathway.com, a platform that allows every industry to mentor and recruit at scale, with minimal cost and effort, while giving students and job seekers clarity about what careers exist and how to pursue them. What started as a frustration in my own business has grown into a movement that’s helping industries connect with the next generation of talent in a smarter, more sustainable way.

How can the Nebraska community support you?

Being a Nebraska-based company, we are off to a good start with support from the governor, many chambers, the DED and more. But we know there is so much more we can do with continuing to grow strategic partnerships. We’re a Nebraska-based company tackling a real challenge facing our state and beyond. CareerPathway.com was built to help businesses fill jobs, colleges fill classrooms, individuals find career paths and educators guide students with better tools. Getting started is as simple as creating your profile and adding content. 

We are a long-term solution for workforce development and career alignment. If you’re passionate about keeping talent here and helping the next generation succeed, we’d love your support, your expertise and your partnership. Nebraska has incredible opportunities for young people, and when they win, we all win.