Buildlytics

Inspiration

My brother and I started a small construction company, and the part that always drove me crazy was doing bid estimates. I’d spend hours in Excel looking up prices and plugging in numbers. Most apps out there are $200+/month for huge catalogs we don’t need, so after a few Bolt hackathon sessions and talking to industry folks, I decided to build something lean and affordable for guys like us.

What it does

Buildlytics uses AI to suggest material and labor costs room by room, based on your ZIP code. You pick your units and rooms, tweak quantities or costs if you want, watch live totals update, and hit one button to generate a PDF bid—no more spreadsheet headaches.

How we built it

• Bolt.new for the React/Tailwind UI—super fast prototyping
  
• Supabase handles email login and saving estimates
  
• Custom AI prompts that take ZIP + room type + item and return editable cost suggestions
  
• Modular components for units, rooms, and line items so it’s easy to extend

Challenges we ran into

• Wrapping my head around construction lingo and bid workflows
  
• Getting the AI to return consistent, structured JSON
  
• Keeping each Bolt prompt small enough to apply without timeouts

Accomplishments that we’re proud of

• A working MVP even without coding experience
  
• Replaced pricey catalogs with on-demand AI suggestions
  
• End-to-end flow: sign in, build your estimate, export PDF

What we learned

• How to translate real-world construction needs into AI prompts
  
• The value of splitting large features into smaller Bolt prompts
  
• The power of user feedback to refine AI estimates

What’s next for Buildlytics

• A live price catalog that learns regional variations from real bids
  
• On-site mobile support so you can estimate right from the job
  
• Community-sourced pricing data to keep estimates sharp and up to date
  

Built With

• auth
• bolt
• css
• html
• postgresql
• react
• typescript