Three months was all it took to break a promise. “I told my wife, I’m going to take a year off, kind of recoup from the grind of being a founder, and that lasted all of about, I think, three months,” Ryan Fink revealed in a recent episode of Category Visionaries. That broken promise led to Digs, which has since scaled to over 5,000 homes across all 50 states in just their first year.
The Pre-Launch Foundation
Rather than rushing to market, Digs took a methodical approach to product development. “We interviewed 25 or more builders before writing even a single line of code, just to get like our prototype out in front of them, have them test it, use it, and then we would iterate,” Ryan explains. This intensive research revealed an overlooked opportunity in the market.
Early Strategic Decisions
Two key decisions shaped their early growth trajectory. First, they made an unusual hiring choice. “One of our first hires was VP of marketing… and her mission was to come on from day one and help us create our go to market strategy and really deeply understand our core target audience,” Ryan shares.
Second, they maintained strict product focus. “Digs is not a project management software,” Ryan emphasizes. “We’re focused on the client experience layer for pre-construction design, handoff and warranty.” This clarity helped avoid the feature bloat that often slows scaling.
Building the Growth Engine
Instead of pursuing traditional SaaS growth tactics, Digs built their expansion on three pillars:
- Customer Success Stories “We have builders like Masarosa out of Oklahoma who he sold ten more homes this year because of Digs,” Ryan notes. These concrete results turned customers into advocates.
- Strategic Partnerships Rather than competing with existing tools, they chose partnership. “We’re going to partner with project management software for the in between the construction process,” Ryan explains.
- Industry Relationships Their relationship-based approach included partnering with industry influencers like Mike Rowe, aligning with broader industry challenges like workforce development.
The Power of Focus
Their disciplined approach to feature requests has been crucial to maintaining growth velocity. “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,” Ryan shares.
Measuring Success
The effectiveness of their strategy is reflected in two key metrics:
- A 41.4% stickiness ratio (compared to the “world-class” benchmark of 16%)
- 20% of new users coming from word-of-mouth referrals
The AI Advantage
Rather than requiring builders to change their workflows, Digs leveraged AI to work in the background. Their goal was 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.”
For B2B founders looking to scale rapidly, Digs’ journey offers several key lessons:
- Invest in deep customer research before building
- Make strategic early hires that shape go-to-market
- Maintain strict product focus while scaling
- Build growth through customer success stories
- Use technology to enhance rather than replace existing workflows
Their rapid expansion suggests that scaling in traditional industries isn’t about disruption – it’s about thoughtful enhancement of existing processes. By focusing on customer experience while respecting established workflows, Digs has achieved remarkable growth without triggering the resistance that often slows B2B adoption.
As they look toward the future, their vision extends beyond current success. Ryan sees Digs 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.”
For founders building B2B products, particularly in traditional industries, Digs’ scaling story offers a compelling template: start with deep customer understanding, maintain strict focus, and build growth through customer success rather than feature expansion.
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