The early days

Ari is the co-founder and CEO of OneCrew, a business management platform for asphalt and concrete paving contractors.

The platform covers everything from leads coming in the door through estimating, proposals, scheduling, field work orders, time tracking, invoicing, job costing, and payments.

OneCrew's first dozen or so customers came through a mix of relationships and cold calling. Two of the first 11 or 12 were straight cold outbound. The rest were people Ari had originally reached out to as advisors while getting to know the industry.

"A lot of it was folks that we had reached out to as advisors to get to know the industry better and to learn from them about what they need out of a product," Ari says. "Many of those folks that we initially brought on as advisors, or who just became friends of the business, were among our first customers."

The CEO with a headset and a Google sheet

Ari doesn't come from a sales background. He didn't have a script. But he figured out early that paving contractors are willing to talk if you show genuine interest in their business.

"A lot of these smaller businesses have been overlooked by the broader tech industry for a long time," he says. "If you call them up and you're really interested in their business and know the industry well enough to ask the right questions, then a lot of people want to talk about their businesses."

OneCrew still uses that approach in cold calling today. Ask the right questions, understand what's most difficult day-to-day, then provide a solution for those problems.

Three channels that work

As OneCrew scaled, three GTM channels stood out: cold calling, word of mouth, and trade shows.

Word of mouth has been mostly organic so far. "We built a product that people love, and we're thankful that people like talking about it," Ari says.

The team is now starting to build more community within the industry, creating forum spaces for contractors to share best practices, with OneCrew in the background as a promoter and supporter of those relationships.

Trade shows work because they put a lot of potential customers in the same room.

Cold calling remains a constant. "That will always be an important part of our sales process," Ari says. "We want to continue building those personal relationships."

Hiring people who care

When asked about the single most impactful decision on the go-to-market side, Ari pointed to the people they've brought in to drive sales.

OneCrew hasn't always hired from within the paving industry. Some salespeople come from other construction tech roles, others from software sales elsewhere.

What matters is whether they genuinely care about the businesses they're selling to.

"They shouldn't just be pushing a product," Ari says. "They should actually be there to help these businesses succeed and ensure we're putting the right product in their hands to help them grow and build a great business."

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