Jordan Rogers had been running his own building business for nine months when he stepped off the tools. Two and a half years in, the Gold Coast renovation builder told Az what he learned about pricing, coaching, AI and the weight of leadership.
Most small builders spend years on the tools after starting out on their own. Some never get off them.
Jordan Rogers, who owns Gold Coast renovation business J3 Built, did it in nine months.
“Being on the tools will only get you so far,” he told Az on our podcast. “You’ll be able to run one job, maybe two. And you’re going to stretch yourself. Then client satisfaction will drop.”
Rogers sat down with Az at the TPB Summit on the Gold Coast, after the event’s organisers singled him out as a young builder with a story worth hearing.
Where did his path into building start?
Rogers did not want to sit in a classroom or an office. Through his teens he was chasing a career in AFL, until around 18 or 19 he accepted he was not going to make it.
“I knew I wasn’t going to sit in office or go to university,” he said.
Work experience with a carpenter at his footy club turned into roughly ten years as a chippy. What stayed with him from football was the team side: giving everyone a role and getting the best out of them.
By the time his playing days ended, he was supervising for his then employer and could see the business was short on systems. “I just kind of said, no, that’s my time… I need to lead and build my own team.”
What did he have to learn once the business was his?
Leadership came naturally to Rogers. Running a business did not.
He said a new builder learns quickly that “you don’t know what you don’t know in the building game.” He recalled pricing his first jobs while still working out what belonged in a quote, and the jump from carpenter to managing “millions of dollars in and out of your bank account.”
He was, by his own account, “very skeptical of all these programs and coaching.” He first came to the summit as a guest twelve months earlier.
What changed his mind was a conversation with a coach he names as Lloyd, who weighed the cost of the program against the margin Rogers expected to make. Rogers had his own benchmark ready.
“We should be really achieving 10% out of each job. That’s the bare minimum,” he said.
He signed up the next day, and was clear on air that he was not being paid to say so. The part he values most is the community. “You strive for the guys who are just in front of you… but you’re bringing up the guys just behind you.”
“You can be an exceptional tradesman [and] still run an unsuccessful building business.”
How did he step off the tools in nine months?
Rogers said he knew stepping back had to happen if he wanted to grow a successful building business. He set out the steps in advance and spoke to builders who had already taken them.
Today he handles sales and project management. An office manager carries much of the administration and back costing. A site lead runs the jobs, with carpenters and an apprentice on the tools.
He has also organised the business in SharePoint around five departments, including sales and finance, so he can see where his own time is going. The aim is to know which role he hands over next.
“You can only grow as fast as the sales you get in the door or where the team’s at,” he said.
Two habits from the summit sessions stood out to him. One was a 90 day game plan, with checkpoints at 30, 60 and 90 days and a date attached to each. The other was a line he credits to one of the program’s coaches: “It’s not a hard conversation. It’s a necessary conversation.”
How does a small builder put AI to work?
Rogers’s approach to using AI is deliberately slow.
“If you’re not implementing AI in business… you’re not going to keep up,” he said. He also called it overwhelming, and tried one new tool the night before the interview only to drop it.
His rule is to start with one thing, get it working, refine it, then add the next.
The bigger point is order. “Build a system or a process… first and then get AI to take over that system and process. And then you can delegate,” he said. “You can’t just get AI to go, yeah, go run a job for me.”
In practice that means documenting the standard operating procedure, recording a video of the task being done, testing the AI against it, expecting it to fail early and refining it until it holds. Az added that an untrained tool starts making assumptions, which is where builders get caught out.
System first, then AI
Rogers describes a set sequence for bringing AI into a building business. The task is first written down as a standard operating procedure, then recorded as it is done, then handed to an AI tool. The tool is tested, corrected and tested again, and the task is delegated only once it works reliably. The process is defined before the tool is chosen, not after.
What is he seeing in the Gold Coast market?
Rogers was working on the Gold Coast through 2021 and 2022, when he says work never stopped. He describes the market since then as softer, with some residential developers pausing projects because the returns are no longer there.
Over the past six months, he said, other builders and trades had been calling him looking for work. For J3 Built, leads for next year started coming through about a month before the interview, which he partly puts down to more marketing.
He remains confident about renovation demand. He says many homes in the area are 50 to 60 years old, and he sees steady work in renovations and knockdown rebuilds. “There’s still market there here on the GC,” he said.
J3 Built intends to stay in renovations. He would take on an architectural new build, but not by undercutting to win it.
What makes a good builder, in his words?
Az closes the show by asking guests what makes a good builder. Rogers read a prepared answer from his notes.
“I think being a good builder goes far beyond the quality of the homes we build,” he said.
He described the financial pressure and sleepless nights clients rarely see, and argued there is “a massive gap between what clients expect from a builder and what it actually takes behind the scenes,” and that closing it is the builder’s job, not the client’s. “That takes extreme ownership.”
On leadership, he said: “You can be surrounded by people all day and still carry the weight of those decisions alone.”
On the numbers: “You can be an exceptional tradesman [and] still run an unsuccessful building business.” His conclusion was that “your business is ultimately a reflection of yourself.”
A good builder, in his view, is defined by “who they become, how they lead” and what they take ownership of “when everything goes wrong.”
Why did he end on reaching out?
Before the recording finished, Rogers asked to add one more thing. His message was for builders, young or old, going through a hard stretch: “reach out to whoever you need to reach out to,” whether that is family, a partner or other builders.
He credited Lloyd directly. “He [genuinely] saved my business this year,” he said.
THE GOOD BUILDER TAKE
What stands out in Rogers’s story is the order he did things in. Systems before delegation. Margin before volume. Ownership before blame. None of it depends on the size of the business. Most builders only work that order out much later.
Listen to the full episode with Jordan Rogers on The Good Builder Podcast. https://share.transistor.fm/s/a56e902d
Frequently asked questions
Jordan Rogers owns J3 Built, a renovation builder on the Gold Coast. A carpenter for about ten years before starting his own business, he had been running J3 Built for around two and a half years when he spoke with Az on our podcast.
He stepped off the tools nine months after starting the business. He said he mapped out the steps in advance, learned from builders who had already done it, and built a team that now includes an office manager, a site lead, carpenters and an apprentice while he handles sales and project management.
Rogers says the process comes before the tool. A task is written down as a standard operating procedure, recorded as it is done, handed to an AI tool, then tested and refined before it is delegated. He introduces one tool at a time rather than several at once.
He says being a good builder goes beyond the quality of the homes. In his view it comes down to closing the gap between what clients expect and what delivery actually takes, owning decisions when things go wrong, and recognising that a business reflects the person running it.
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General information only. This article is based on a conversation recorded for our podcast and reflects the views and experiences of the guest. It is general information only and is not legal, financial or business advice. Readers should seek advice specific to their own circumstances before acting on anything in it.
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