Middle Tech
340 | Builder Backed: Paul Koop on Building the Carfax for Homes from Covington, KY
Your car has a dealership that knows every service it's ever had. Your house - usually the largest asset you'll ever own - has nothing. In this episode, Builder Backed co-founder and CEO Paul Koop joins us to share how his Covington, Kentucky startup is building what he calls the "Carfax for homes": a permanent, portable service record for a house, created from the day it's built. Paul traces the idea back to buying a home built in 1892, then moving four times in five years and losing access to his father-in-law, a lifetime tradesman and the only trusted resource he had. He explains why partnering with homebuilders - starting with Erlanger-based Fischer Homes - gave Builder Backed the clean data and the distribution that home-services aggregators spend fortunes chasing, how a provider-paid model keeps homeowners, trades, and builders aligned, and why the partnership turned out to drive Fischer's sales rather than just improve customer service. He also gets specific about where AI stops: nobody, yet, will let a bot walk them into a $40,000 decision about their house. It's a case study in what happens when a seed-stage founder finds one anchor partner in his own backyard, and a reminder that the Cincinnati region's deep bench of big-company talent is a real startup advantage. Hosted by Logan Jones Middle Tech is proudly supported by:KY Innovation → kyinnovation.comAwesome Inc → awesomeinc.org
