Buildertrend, a software company aimed at assisting general contractors and home builders with managing projects, is celebrating 20 years since its founding in 2006. Beginning in Omaha, where it remains headquartered today, the company has gained notoriety in both the industry it serves and the community it calls home. 

Buildertrend said it employs more than 700 people in person, hybrid and remotely across the country, with a majority based in Omaha. In addition, representatives said Buildertrend has over 20,000 customers across 100 countries. 

Brothers Jeff and Steve Dugger said they bootstrapped and launched the company from their home with fellow Co-founder Dan Houghton. Teaching themselves about and exploring the early possibilities of website design and code — in their basement — the Duggers said that they may have lived out a right of passage commonly depicted for tech entrepreneurs.

However, they said they treated themselves at the time as more owners of a “brick-and-mortar” business who wanted to be their own bosses than startup founders seeking to scale.

“In the early mid-2000s, the whole phrase ‘startup’ didn’t really exist yet — or at least not in the circles that we ran in,” Steve Dugger said. “I had some friends growing up whose parents were small business owners, and I could just kind of see that they viewed the world a little bit differently.”

The duo said they started out in their 20s creating web-based solutions for various small and medium-sized businesses across Omaha and Lincoln. From this network, they said, they discovered an interest among contractors for a tool to communicate more effectively across all parties involved in building a home. 

The Duggers said they benefited from listening to clients, staying “lean” and not fixating on what larger competitors were doing. 

“It was a pretty daunting task,” Jeff Dugger said. “We just felt confident that we could do it differently and we could do it better.”

The Duggers said Buildertrend’s development journey is one of addressing and adapting to customer and industry demands. 

For example, the company says its expansion into the remodeling market during the housing market crash of the Great Recession circa 2008 helped it survive and progress. Advancements of mobile phones and app capabilities also opened up new opportunities. 

“When we started this company, the iPhone had not landed yet and completely changed the industry,” Jeff Dugger said. “You never know what’s coming.”

Traction in Omaha with workers nationwide

Over the years, Buildertrend would move up, adjust and make decisions on its workforce, office spaces, product line and customer reach. It has been operating out of its current headquarters in west Omaha since its move in 2017. 

Buildertrend pointed to additional trajectory moments:

• Bringing on partners through its “first institutional growth investment” in 2020
• Forming partnerships with well-known brands, such as Lowe’s and Home Depot
• Acquiring competitors and other software offerings, such as CoConstruct, CBUSA and Square Takeoff in 2021 and ToolBeltData in 2022

Representatives said its modern platform and features provide “end-to-end coverage” for construction projects. This involves everything from worker scheduling to financial planning. 

“We talk to customers constantly from our executive team to our frontline individual contributors,” Buildertrend Chief Product Officer Charlotte Bradley said in an email to SPN. “What is core to our product philosophy is focusing first on understanding our customers’ most painful problems, then choosing the technology best suited to solve them.”

Sparked from a mutual connection with Buildertrend leadership, Bradley joined the team in May 2025 and operates remotely from California. Having previously worked internationally and across the United States, she said she has always placed importance on a company’s culture.  

“I strongly believe there is talent everywhere, and I’m proud to work for a company that believes in that as well,” Bradley said. 

Starting out, the Duggers said they had struggles competing over a limited software engineer hiring pool in Nebraska. Still, they said staying in Omaha has benefited them with cheaper costs of living, Midwestern work ethic and overall positive qualities of life. Through the evolution of state university programs, they added that a skilled workforce has emerged. 

“We have a lot of boomerangs,” Jeff Dugger said. “Senior engineers, they graduate from college, they went and worked for Microsoft, went and worked for Google, and then they decided they wanted to raise a family in Omaha.”

“But once remote work became part of our organization and just part of the industry, those walls were broken down,” he added. 

Community impact

Buildertrend has sought to serve its surrounding community and encourage educational initiatives in the state. These include getting involved with affordable housing organizations such as Habitat for Humanity of Omaha and Livable Omaha as well as championing entrepreneurial programming at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). 

Curt Caldwell, COO in construction at Habitat for Humanity of Omaha, said that when he started his role, he didn’t realize how many programs the nonprofit offered beyond building homes. Habitat Omaha additionally provides assistance in such areas as house repairs and deed transfers in its overall mission to make home ownership more accessible.

Buildertrend said it donated its software to Habitat Omaha in 2014. Caldwell said Buildertrend and its tech have been “integral” for the success of the organization in both its day-to-day operations and long-term planning. 

“Building materials continue to go up, equipment prices continue to go up, lot prices continue to go up, concrete continues to go up,” Caldwell said. “Any way that we can keep the overall cost of building down, it’s going to be beneficial ultimately for Habitat and for the homeowners.”

The families and individuals served by Habitat Omaha face constrained time windows with rent and communicating move-out dates with their landlords. Caldwell said having reliable management software ensures the move-in ready homes are completed when they have to be. Beyond its product line, Caldwell said, Buildertrend and its employees have also contributed through volunteering and sponsoring construction projects. 

Rob Nickolaus, one of the lead faculty members at the UNL Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management, said Buildertrend has been a staunch supporter: speaking to students, acting as an internship and job pipeline and sponsoring Design Studio capstone projects. Design Studio gives students real-world experiences collaborating with Nebraska companies and designing actionable solutions they request. 

Nickolaus also credited Buildertrend leadership for helping launch the specialized Startup Studio version, where students form teams and develop their own ventures. 

“We still kind of call (Buildertrend) a startup, but when you hit 20 years, you’re probably a bit more mature than that,” Nickolaus said. “But it’s that model that our students look to.” 

Buildertrend has board involvement in both Habitat Omaha and Raikes School. 

Future plans

Builders are going into 2026 with a mix of concerns as the construction industry faces fluctuating material costs and hiring struggles. 

CPO Bradley said Buildertrend will be announcing new products and features at the upcoming National Association of Home Builders International Builders’ Show in Orlando, Florida. One area she said the company is experimenting with is the integration of artificial intelligence into daily workflows to save time and reduce errors. 

“We see a lot of opportunities to automate more of our customers’ manual processes and take that off their plates so they can focus on what humans are uniquely positioned to do,” Bradley said. 

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Buildertrend is also hosting a party during the 2026 International Builders’ Show. Leadership plan to reflect on the past 20 years and hint at the future, and guests can expect to connect with industry stakeholders and leaders. 

The Duggers said they have experienced multiple milestones that have proven their prominence in the space, but they never have had a defining moment that told them that Buildertrend was no longer a “scrappy” venture or should stop looking into other verticals to scale into.

“We’re still a startup in the sense that we’re very customer focused,” Steve Dugger said. “The product is never done. We’re doing more releases today than we ever have.”