America’s biggest social marketplace for contractor tradespeople will offer new tools to nearly 400,000 users after acquiring WRANGLD, a SaaS company designed to streamline commerce between distributors, contractors and owner/end-users. 

This partnership puts the utility of the WRANGLD platform into the pockets and desktops of the working user on Trade Hounds. For more than three years, WRANGLD has saved contractors valuable time with its estimation and proposal tools, allowing them to focus more on what really matters. 

JD Dyke was a co-founder and CEO of WRANGLD. He is looking forward to incorporating some of WRANGLD’s most popular tools into the Trade Hounds app.

“When we look at the road map of Trade Hounds and WRANGLD coming together and the tools that we can provide together to help contractors, it is very exciting to know this is where the future is going and how this is going to help the industry,” he said. 

A recent poll of Trade Hounds users found that 72% have to jump between different websites and apps for job and project estimation, proposals, job scheduling and management, invoicing and collections. This inefficiency is felt throughout the contractor community as buying expectations shift to demand a one-stop, digital workflow experience. Trade Hounds and WRANGLD are working to solve this pain point while also helping distributors to better serve their customers. 

“It's often tedious to make one simple order,” said Dyke. “If you're doing multiple orders a day, it slows down progress. That is kind of the norm that we've accepted in the industry, and that's something that we definitely look to change.”

About 70% of Trade Hounds users visit a distributor branch at least once a week. Over half buy from 4 or more distributors. However, fewer than one in 10 described their experience using distributor websites and apps as great. 

While Trade Hounds started as a social media app for skilled tradespeople, users have been clamoring for tools to resolve sourcing and workflow issues. In response, Trade Hounds launched a new supply house connection feature that allows users to leverage AI to quickly and easily find and optimize product availability and sourcing at nearby distributor branches. Trade Hounds’ acquisition of WRANGLD will propel this initiative to make it easier for contractors to do their jobs and get paid faster.

“As distributors think about helping their customers to win more business, it's so important to take that friction out of the process because the contractor who proposes first often wins the bid,” said Trade Hounds CEO David Bauders. “So, for distributors who aren't participating in these workflow tools, they're basically making it harder for their contractor customers to win those bids.”

The new direction marks an accelerating shift in the company’s mission to open the Trade Hounds app to the entire construction ecosystem. Trade Hounds is now partnering with manufacturers and distributors to create a national commerce platform of construction and industrial materials, supplies, tools and parts.

This database will fuel an array of contractor tools in the Trade Hounds app and website. Dyke will join Trade Hounds CTO Jon Clark and his team to bring the best of both companies together in a digital tool belt suite of utilities that streamline daily workflow. 

Despite more digital procurement tools entering the market, more than 70% of Trade Hounds users currently rely on phone calls, spreadsheets, email, and even pen and paper for estimating, proposals, job management, billing and collections. This presents an opportunity for Trade Hounds to help contractors streamline and automate workflows to make more money and buy more efficiently from their distributors.

“There's a real labor shortage coming, and we're not getting enough people into the skilled trades fast enough to even make up for people who are retiring, let alone all the expanding needs because of infrastructure projects nationally. In addition, extreme weather, infrastructure investment, data centers, and such are really accelerating the demand for more construction, upgrade and repair,” said Bauders. “I think the big opportunity is to increase productivity. We can start to help each person working streamline and automate tedious workflow steps, while better serving the end customer. And then to be able to digitize and incorporate AI, I think we have a real opportunity to close the productivity gap.”


 

Watch video of Trade Hounds CEO interviewing WRANGLD CEO: https://youtu.be/tQZCE4OeyhA?si=fZc0uS6lAKgERFp- 

Learn more at https://www.tradehounds.com/