From Awakened Homeowner Book to Build Quest Development: The Complete Planning System Coming Soon

William Reid: Better now than never to tell you—we're pregnant! We're in our second trimester. We wanted to wait to tell you until we knew for sure it was going to happen, but Build Quest, my new web-based application, has been in development for the past six months now. We've been designing it with an individual who's been amazing to work with—a specialist in what's called UI and UX Design—and we're getting ready to move into development.

t caused this. One is back in: 1999

I was able to integrate Microsoft Project, document handling, communication, and would post schedules and updates to clients in 1999 and 2000. We were so intrigued with it that I actually submitted it to the National Remodeling Quality Award that's put on by the National Association of Home Builders and won with a group of other people.

This all stemmed from all my customers—it's their fault. All my software engineers, all my high-tech executives, all my startup people, all my customers were high-tech people in Silicon Valley and Northern California, a stone's throw from Apple computers and Yahoo back then, and Facebook and Google. They helped me indirectly stay on this high-tech path. It's been 25 years now, and I'm back again with Build Quest.

Let's move into the studio, and I'm going to tell you more about it.

So let's talk about the new application I'm developing called Build Quest. It really stems from 35 years of coordinating the design and construction of residential projects smack dab in the middle of Silicon Valley. This whole technology idea resurfaced when I began writing the book—or I should say when I got deep into the editing of the book—when my editors asked me, "What are they supposed to do with all this information? It's wonderful, but what are we supposed to do with all of it?"

me back in time. Back in the: 1999

But I connected with a web developer and designed a project management system. All my high-tech clients, which were all my clients, loved it. I was able to integrate it with Microsoft Project, upload schedules, documentation, communication. It's hard to believe that was 25 years ago, and since then I've always had this affinity with software.

I ended up using all different kinds of platforms that I didn't develop over the last 25 years, and I've landed on my latest one called JobTread, which is great for companies like my construction company to manage projects and work with clientele on the project management side of things. So when my editors asked, "What do we do with all this?" it all came back to me, and that's where Build Quest was born. It's not even born yet—it's actually still in the womb. We're getting ready to move into development of Build Quest, and there's no turning back now.

So what I've done is I've developed a first release of Build Quest, which is going to contain four modules. The first one's the project setup stage, which revolves around my discovery series in The Awakened Homeowner book. All of the inspiration and the framework of the Build Quest application is based off of The Awakened Homeowner book. That's a really good place to start building your knowledge, and then you'll be able to apply it to your project using the Build Quest application, so you won't have to think too much.

So the project setup phase is going to guide you through some questions, and that's probably a good time to mention that integrated into the application, just like everybody else nowadays, is an artificial intelligence system. But it's going to be a person, and his name is Quinn. Quinn's going to help guide you through the whole process and ask you all the pertinent questions so that you don't have to think about it, so that you don't have to be afraid of what you don't know. He'll be asking you all the questions that we need to know to develop what we call your project hub.

So in the project setup beginning of using the Build Quest application, you're going to see that there are two options that you have to build a project. You have the custom setup, where you get to pick and choose all of the things that you want in your home, and Quinn asks you some questions—some pertinent questions that help you with that task.

But then we have a really unique tool called Express—Build Quest Express, we call it. That stems from all my experience with homeowners where they actually see a home that they really love in their neighborhood. They see a home online that is for sale that they really love, where they can search for new homes in their area that are for sale, or other areas for that matter—doesn't really have to be in their area—but homes that they really love, and if they were to wave a magic wand, they would just want that home.

Here's what the Build Quest feature does: You take that link to that property listing and you drop it into the Express and tap "Go," and it will generate all of the aspects of the project, which is the project setup, the Vision Spec, the Budget Builder, and even the ProQuest. This magical tool takes all of the data that's available to us that we need, and it's everything that we pretty much need to create all of that.

Our AI tools will analyze the look and feel of that home, determine the architectural style, and take a look at all of the pictures of the exterior and interior and develop vision boards for each of the rooms for you to peruse. It'll also take all of the data that is provided, such as the square footage, the bedrooms and bathrooms, and any other unique features, and use that to build the budget for the project, which is pretty amazing in of itself. And then you'll be able to go into your project hub and edit that and review that to your heart's content.

And then also the ProQuest feature will help you find design and construction professionals that are in your area that are used to building those homes. And in fact, we might even be able to find the builder that built that home if it's a new home. So that is the idea. We have a custom setup feature and we have an Express feature, and it's for different types of homeowners. Some people really want to get into it to begin with, and some people just love something. What's great about the Express feature is you can create all of your project data within minutes, but then you can actually go into your project hub and change and customize it to your heart's content. So that is the idea—to get you a jumpstart as much as everything you wanted, or give you the ability to start editing those features.

So you've got the custom setup and you've got the Express setup, and he will guide you through the first questions, asking you some of the basics, like where is your project located and the configuration that you may desire for your home from the global level down to the different rooms and details that you might want—exterior features, interior features. We just go through all of these questions that will tie into the next upcoming modules, which is Vision Spec, Budget Builder, and ProQuest.

So Vision Spec is a tool that's going to take all of the information that you've leisurely sat down and answered questions for in minutes, and it's going to build you a set of vision boards and feed you all the information that you need to help you with your inspirations. Now this is going to be done on many different applications, such as Pinterest and Houzz and web links. And as you probably know as a homeowner, you're completely overwhelmed at this point, but this is going to be one central location. In fact, we're going to be able to integrate Pinterest into Build Quest so that you can actually manage all of your inspirations inside Build Quest. Or if you're in Pinterest already, you can share your boards with Vision Spec within the Build Quest application, and everything's going to be in one location.

I've also decided to implement an organization tool within Vision Spec because I know way in advance—way down the road, I should say—you're going to be needing to develop a set of specifications for your project or your design team will. And if you find a tile you like and all of your inspirations months and months ago, you can tag it to tile. If you have a particular room that you want that tile in, you could tag it to that room, and then you'll be able to create vision boards by room or by material. And what better way to share your inspirations and set your expectations for your design team?

Vision Spec's going to be a powerful tool. It's going to do a lot of the work for you, but then you'll be able to take the reins over and dial it in even more. For example, during the project setup stage, if you decided you wanted a three-bedroom, two-bath modern contemporary home with an outdoor barbecue, a detached garage, an accessory dwelling unit, a basement—all of the things that Quinn's going to be asking you about—Vision Spec's going to actually create vision boards for you based on the questions that we asked you in the project setup.

So it's none of this just typing searches into Google. This tool's going to go out and find it all for you and do its best to get you started. And it might even get you there—you don't know—but you'll have the feature of thumbs up and thumbs down of the different images, and then Quinn will keep sending you more images that you can save and organize and go back to over and over again. And that is what the Vision Spec tool is in a nutshell.

So now that we have the project setup and we have the Vision Spec, now we have the budgeting tool, and this is a big one. So our budgeting tool is based on proprietary data that I have over 35 years on top of geographic data that can affect budgeting and quality levels and other variety of parameters that will build a budget for you based on all of the things that you've done up to the Budget Builder.

So in other words, it's going to develop a budget for your three-bedroom, two-bath, 2,700-square-foot home in the modern aesthetic, and you'll have the ability to select the quality level that you think you'd want, and you'll always be able to edit this later. It's also going to include some of the things that people always forget, and that is the design fees, the permit fees, and other elements that come into play that are going to come out of your pocket that you need to think about. And that is a big part of the Budget Builder.

Within the budgeting tool, we have two ways to look at a project. We have the actual anticipated construction costs, including design fees and permits, but we also have another way to analyze the project, and that's based on an investment perspective. So what our tool does is if you assign a particular parcel that you plan to build on or an existing home that you plan to remodel or purchase and remodel, Quinn will go out and research your neighborhoods and find comparable data to your existing home in the case of a remodel, and compare that to other properties in the area to determine a market value.

Then it will look at existing homes that have similar data to the project that you want. So let's say you're expanding your home from a two-bedroom to a three-bedroom home. You're adding 500 square feet, you're adding different features to the project that is relevant to other homes in the area. He will go out and search for homes in that square footage range, the amount of bedrooms and bathrooms, and then offer you up a potential market price for that project when you're completed, before you've even done anything.

And then in the new construction world, you will go out and look for areas in the immediate area or close by that have homes of the similar size and configuration and style and everything that you want, and he'll determine a market value when you're completed with that project. Now it's not down to the nitty-gritty, but it's enough for you to look at your project from an investment perspective and a construction cost perspective and see how well those line up. And we call it "balancing the budget."

So what you'll do then is you'll take a little teeter-totter, if you will, and you'll balance your wishes and dreams and ideas and values with your budget. And then you'll address your wishes and dreams with a market price. And that way you can understand if you're over-investing or under-investing for your project. Really interesting to analyze a project from two perspectives.

The one part I forgot is early on, Quinn asked you in the budgeting module how much you think you want to invest in your home—invest in your property—and this is the fun part. You can see how much you thought it was going to cost and how much it is going to cost. And then you can compare that with the investment perspective to understand if that's a smart investment or if you care. Some people don't really care about resale or an investment perspective because this is their forever home, but other people do because they plan to sell this home when the kids get out of high school or something like that.

The investment perspective is important because I would say 80 to 90% of the time when I first engaged with clientele over all the years, one of the first things they say is, "I want to spend $300,000 on my project" after they just rattled off all of the different things that they want to have. And one of my questions is, "How did you come up with that number?" And the answer is, "I don't know. That's just how much we want to spend," or "I heard my neighbor next door spent about the same amount of money."

All of these things are delusional, and people get that set in their head that that's what they're going to spend. Therefore, that's what it's going to cost. And then we get really deep into the design process and the construction estimating process, and the disappointments just start to surface. It's a really big problem in this business.

So that's the idea with the budget tool—to ask you what you think it's going to cost or ask you how much you want to invest, analyze the project that you just went through with Quinn and setting up your configurations and your visions and ideas, comparing it to a budget, an estimated construction budget, the market value of your property so that you can then make informed decisions. This is a really important part of the budgeting exercise.

All of this is done before you engage with an architect or designer. I suppose you could do it after, but one of the first things an architect or a designer's thinking of when you reach out to them is, "I wonder how much money they have." Honestly, they want to know if you can afford all of these lofty dreams that you have before they even start engaging with you. Okay, they're going to ask you that question. Some of them won't ask you that question, and that's even scarier because they may not feel comfortable asking that question. You may not be comfortable offering that information.

But here's the problem: If you don't close that gap, you are going to go down a path, spend thousands of dollars, and have a really big disappointment when the time comes to do the estimating of the project. So this is how we do it. We go through the budgeting exercises, we go through the investment exercises, we share it with the people that are supposed to provide you solutions, and then go from there. Best way to position everybody to succeed.

Now, the Budget Builder is based on medium to upper-end projects, although you'll have the ability as a user to be able to revise and edit that. Depending on your personal circumstances, it might be the situation where you actually are going to do a lot of the work yourself, or that you're going to design the project yourself, or whatever the case may be. You'll be able to customize the budget tool so that when it comes time to share with your design professional, you'll be able to do so, and they'll have a real good idea of your budget, your inspirations, and the home that you desire.

The last tool is called ProQuest, and before I go into that, I want to explain to you what the master goal is of Build Quest, and that is to take the cognitive thinking out of it, at least at the beginning for you so that you can get started, and to use technology and experience and tools to connect you with the right professional. And what I mean by connect, I don't mean like a referral service or a lead generation service that a lot of the businesses are doing these days, where you have to go through and fill out four questions and it wants your email, and then get sold a bill of goods. We don't make any money off any of that kind of stuff.

The idea is to create a package, if you will, where you'll be able to set up your project hub, showing your project configuration, showing your inspirations options to show your budget, and then you'll be able to go out and search for professionals that are in your area all related to your project data. So our tool's going to go out and search for design professionals that are certified or licensed in your area that are accustomed to doing projects like yours in the budget range that yours is, and that you'll be able to tap on your project hub, connect with those design professionals, and ask them if they'd be interested in looking at your project.

And when they see you as a homeowner have been prepared—that you've done your homework—they are going to be really interested in talking with you. And best of all, you have set your expectations, and that leads me into the guiding principles of Build Quest and The Awakened Homeowner. Our guiding principles is what everything revolves around and everything we do for you as a homeowner, and that is to enlighten, empower, and protect you, and a wrapper around that is to meet your expectations and to share your expectations.

So enlighten is building your knowledge, educating you, which you will then become empowered to ask the right questions, to deliver the right information, which will protect your experience, which will protect the quality of your home, and even guide you on the right insurance you should have, for example. And the biggest one is setting your expectations—like actually documenting your expectations so your design professional can see your expectations, and now you've eliminated a lot of the hiccups that happen in this business because you thought one thing and they thought another, and you missed in the middle. Nobody talked about budget. Let's talk about it way too late after you spent thousands and thousands of dollars on plans.

This is for you to get it out of here and onto something so that you can share it with a professional and connect you with the right one. That is the objective of Build Quest in version one in the first release. This right here is going to solve a tremendous amount of problems that already exist out there that people don't even know it's happening and end up paying the price later and don't even realize when they're paying the price why they're paying the price.

So Build Quest is an empowerment tool. It will be your home base, your project hub, all during the course of your project, in the design, and even in the construction. So that's where this is coming from. This is coming from a seasoned builder contractor that's been heavily involved in the design aspect as well. In fact, I employed my own design staff and my own construction staff, and I operate a design-build business model. So I've seen it all the way through, and I know where a lot of the mistakes can be made.

And the more thorough we are in the plans, the more thorough the specifications are—meaning all your materials, the thoroughness of the scope of work document, what are the instructions to do—the better your experience will be. And the only way that can happen is if the expectations are shared with the people that are going to be doing that for you. We're using technology to connect expertise to make that connection with the professionals.

You're still going to need the professionals to help you, and that's the problem with what's happening out in the web, in the internet, and all of these social influencers. You're seeing mounds and mounds of checklists and even people marketing materials that have never managed a project in their life. And even books—I've even seen some books that way too.

I came to this realization recently, and the last episode I talked about that. Don't get me wrong, there are professionals out there that have created some great systems. I've looked into them, but more often than not, there's a ton of stuff out there that's going to confuse you. And why do that when you don't have to? When you can just sit back, gain some knowledge, and dive into Build Quest.

I welcome you to read The Awakened Homeowner book as you're pondering your project. I know that many people spend months and years even thinking about a project, and that's where the book can really help people. If you're already under construction, that's going to come later—a different book. But this book is all about empowering you with knowledge to orchestrate your dream home. And that's the subtitle of the book. And then you'll be able to dive into Build Quest.

And if you haven't even read the book, Build Quest will have another tool in there that's called The Navigator. When you first meet Quinn, you will notice that he has a compass in his hand, and he's navigating you through your project. And everywhere on the Build Quest application, you will be seeing a compass in the same location every time that you can tap on, and in will come some knowledge base for you on the step that you're on—some additional guidance from me, from Quinn, from podcast episodes to YouTube videos, to guest appearances, to downloadable checklists for that particular step that you're on. For example, when it comes time to interview an architect, I'll have a checklist for you to ask particular questions. That'll be The Navigator that'll come in and provide additional information for you.

I'm also going to be setting up a community, an online community for Build Quest and The Awakened Homeowner, where we'll all be talking together about your project. We'll be talking about ideas and strategies on how to best tackle your project, and that'll be a tool that we'll be able to use to share your experiences with Build Quest.

th of July of: 2025

I'll be inviting several people to join the private release in exchange for feedback, exchange for criticism, and then the second release will come as a private launch, and that will be a soft launch, if you will. But we'll launch the application and invite even more people to it in the public, and then eventually we'll do a public launch. I'll ease our way into it. I'm not in a huge hurry. I want to make sure this tool is really right for everybody.

So I welcome you to read The Awakened Homeowner book, subscribe to the podcast and the YouTube channel, and follow along on the socials, which is just Instagram and Facebook, and I'll be posting updates on the application as we get through it. We've got some exciting things coming up that I'd like to share with you as it's coming online, or not even online—before it's online.

That's what I have for you today. I'm Bill Reid, and this is The Awakened Homeowner Show. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.