Building the API of the Home: Digs’ Vision for Construction’s Digital Future

A physical binder with incomplete home information sparked a vision that could transform home construction and ownership. “Going through that home building process saw that it was not digital whatsoever. And at the end of the build, I was left with a physical binder with very little of the information on my home,” Ryan Fink shared in a recent episode of Category Visionaries. This frustration led to an ambitious goal: creating digital twins for every new home in America.

The Missing CarFax for Homes

The vision starts with a simple comparison. “We have things today like Carfax for your car, but there’s nothing like home facts for your home,” Ryan explains. This gap is particularly striking given that homes are typically the largest investment people make.

The Information Already Exists

What makes this vision particularly compelling is Ryan’s insight about information flow in construction: “All the information on the home flows freely and exists throughout the build process. But it’s not captured organized in any meaningful way. So at the end of the build, it’s lost out into the ether.”

The AI-Driven Approach

Rather than requiring builders to change their workflows, Digs uses AI to work quietly in the background. The goal is to “generate a true semantic understanding, both spatial information from the blueprint, and then a semantic understanding from all the inventory, like the lights, flooring, the countertop, all the way down to grout and paint color.”

Beyond Documentation

The vision extends far beyond simple documentation. “In three to five years, we hope that every new home in the US is generating a digital twin for the homeowner,” Ryan shares. But this is just the foundation for something bigger: becoming “the API of the home” where “brands that homeowners love, whether it’s a retail brand, furniture, et cetera, or products or services, can plug into the home and provide new experiences that we haven’t even imagined today.”

Shaping Current Strategy

This long-term vision shapes Digs’ current decisions in several key ways:

1. Product Focus “Digs is not a project management software,” Ryan emphasizes. Instead, they’re “focused on the client experience layer for pre-construction design, handoff and warranty.” This focus helps them build toward their vision without getting distracted.
2. Feature Evaluation Every feature request goes through what Ryan calls a “distillation process,” ensuring alignment with their long-term vision. “It takes a village… It’s our EPD team, our engineering, product and design team, really making sure that we’re ingesting customer feedback and then doing the distillation process, making sure that we’re distilling it against who we are.”
3. Partnership Strategy Rather than competing with existing tools, they partner strategically. “We’re going to partner with project management software for the in between the construction process,” Ryan explains. This approach keeps them focused on their core vision while expanding their ecosystem.

The effectiveness of this vision-driven approach is evident in their early results:

• Over 5,000 homes onboarded in their first year
• Presence in all 50 states and several Canadian provinces
• 41.4% stickiness ratio (compared to 16% “world-class” benchmark)
• 20% of new users coming from word-of-mouth referrals

For B2B founders, Digs’ approach offers several key lessons about vision-driven growth:

1. Start with a clear, ambitious vision that solves a fundamental problem
2. Use the vision to maintain focus and evaluate opportunities
3. Look for ways to enhance existing workflows rather than replace them
4. Build partnerships that align with your long-term goals
5. Let your vision guide feature development and product strategy

The construction industry stands at the beginning of a major digital transformation. While many companies focus on digitizing specific processes, Digs’ vision suggests a different path: creating a comprehensive digital layer that enhances rather than replaces existing workflows. Their early success indicates that this vision-first approach might be the key to driving technological adoption in traditional industries.