Growth & Product
How Cru and Early Pay turned a free AI tool into Constrafor’s biggest organic growth channel
Growth Experiments
Product Strategy
Fintech
Construction Tech
Visit cru.ai
THE ORGANIC GROWTH LOOP
Cru solves a daily job
A free AI agent removes the COI compliance burden first.
Trust earns access
A lower-friction email connection brings the agent to life.
Value turns into intent
Early Pay estimates turn an interested visitor into a qualified start.
20x
increase in clicks into Cru and Early Pay marketing after the homepage relaunch
800+
organic email connections through the Nylas OAuth flow
In progress
measurement for lift in qualified starts from the updated prequalification flow
Scaling organically
Cru shipped from scratch and became a sustained organic entry point
About Cru and Early Pay
Cru is a free AI agent that helps construction subcontractors manage Certificates of Insurance—one of the biggest compliance headaches in getting and staying qualified for jobs. Early Pay lets subcontractors unlock working capital against invoices instead of waiting out standard payment terms. Together, they solve both sides of the problem: staying compliant and getting paid.
Project Background
I own growth across both products. Early Pay had strong product-market fit, but acquisition relied on expensive outbound and paid channels in an industry slow to trust new financial tools. Cru became the answer: a free product subcontractors want to use on its own, organically opening the door to the rest of the Constrafor ecosystem.
Key Challenges
The growth loop had to solve five connected sources of friction.
01 No low-friction way for subcontractors to discover Constrafor’s paid products.
02 Inbox access was essential for COI management, but email is trust-sensitive to ask for.
03 Users did not know their available capital before beginning an Early Pay application.
04 The existing application was clunky and not designed for mobile completion.
05 The homepage failed to show value for either Cru or Early Pay before visitors committed.
What I Shipped
Cru, from scratch
Built and launched cru.ai and its blog as the free entry point to the ecosystem.
The Nylas OAuth modal
A trust-forward inbox connection flow that drove 800+ organic email connections.
Updated prequalification
Personalized credit limits based on revenue and industry—before a user commits.
Early Pay calculator
A self-serve estimate that translated browsing into applying.
New application process
A leaner, mobile-optimized experience that removed friction from completion.
Homepage relaunch
A clearer front door for both products—driving a 20x lift in marketing clicks.
