Founder: Ziv Levi ’24
Venture: LeanCon, which recently completed a $6 million funding round, helps construction companies and developers automate the project planning process, increasing accuracy and accelerating building schedules while reducing costs.
What was the moment when you had the idea for this startup?
A few weeks into the MBA program, I recalled a scenario from my time working as an engineer. It was a challenging residential project where I was responsible for the full planning lifecycle: conducting initial analysis, preparing the detailed bidding proposal, and developing the entire operational strategy. Through that experience, I recognized that the traditional planning process was fundamentally broken. It was a complex and time-consuming cycle that spanned eight months on average and was highly resource-intensive, requiring significant investment from multiple stakeholders without guaranteeing an optimal solution or a high probability of winning the bid. Looking back on that experience as an MBA student, I started diving deeper into the market and the problem I faced. I researched how other companies handled similar efforts and quickly realized this challenge wasn’t unique to my employer; it was a widespread, systemic challenge across the entire construction and real estate industries.
This revelation was a lightbulb moment for me. I immediately recognized a significant business opportunity to create a scalable solution that could streamline the preconstruction process for countless companies. That’s why I dedicated my time at SOM to building LeanCon, a company that will not only solve this problem but also create a new, industry-wide standard for how construction projects are analyzed, bid, and planned.
What’s the problem you’re trying to solve or the gap you’re trying to fill?
On average, preconstruction teams responsible for project bids invest months evaluating, planning, and pricing hundreds of potential opportunities. Unfortunately, due to strong competition, only about 10% of those projects ultimately come to fruition. Another major challenge is that even when a construction company wins a bid, costly planning errors are frequently not identified until construction is already underway—far too late to efficiently correct them. This results in significant operational drain, contributing to the industry’s estimated $177 billion in annual economic losses due to inefficiency.
This ongoing inefficiency is a direct result of the industry’s historical reliance on individual expertise and intuition rather than the powerful clarity of data-driven methodologies. We lack a standardized, industry-wide approach for optimal decision-making, which forces seasoned professionals to navigate critical uncertainties using subjective, personal judgment. This is precisely the gap my team and I aim to address.
What was the most important resource Yale SOM contributed to your startup?
The faculty and the Program on Entrepreneurship (POE) have been incredibly helpful. Coming from an engineering background, my experience was primarily in planning and managing construction projects. I had little prior experience with strategic business thinking or creating a business model.
Fortunately, I received tremendous assistance from my professors. During my first year, I took the course Founders Practicum, where I had the opportunity to work closely with Professor Kyle Jensen. He’s a seasoned entrepreneur who works with numerous Yale startups. He provided me with invaluable guidance on the practical aspects of launching a venture, including fundraising, achieving product-market fit, and navigating the challenges of a rapidly growing company. He also assisted me in preparing LeanCon for our pre-seed fundraising target, which we then successfully completed.
After I completed my first-year core courses, I enrolled in as many courses as possible through the POE. Key highlights included Entrepreneurial Finance and Venture Capital and Private Equity, taught by Professor Song Ma, along with Leading Small and Medium Enterprises, taught by A.J. Wasserstein. During this time, I also enrolled in the Founders Practicum again and had the good fortune to work closely with Jennifer McFadden, the associate director of the POE. The program was incredible and provided targeted support for me as a founder, offering a curriculum focused on the skills needed to grow a startup from scratch.
Beyond SOM, I was lucky enough to connect with Phil Bernstein, the deputy dean at the Yale School of Architecture. Phil previously spent 16 years as vice president for architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) at the software company Autodesk, where he led the company’s vision and strategy for AEC technologies. He joined us as an advisor and invaluable resource on our journey, and recently invested in LeanCon as part of our seed round.
What’s the biggest milestone your startup has hit so far?
After successfully securing our pre-seed funding while I was still in the MBA program, we immediately started building the first version of our product. Once the product was ready, we deployed it on a project in Manhattan. There, we helped our client shorten their project schedule by 15%, saving the company nearly $800,000. A few months later, we assisted another client facing a significant dilemma regarding possible construction methods. Our AI technology helped choose the best option, shortening the initial schedule by six weeks and saving the client over $500,000. Subsequently, we closed a $6 million seed round, doubling our original $3 million target.
In the relatively short time since we started, we’ve developed a working relationship with one of the largest privately held construction and real estate development firms in the U.S. This strategic partnership underscores the market need and potential of our technology, which has already been utilized to plan over $1 billion in total project value.
