How Walk Your Plans Is Changing the Way Builders Plan, Design, and Build

Walk Your Plans projects your floor plan at full scale so you can walk through your space before construction begins.

It helps you spot design issues early and avoid costly changes during construction.

Most homeowners make 10–20 layout changes during a typical walkthrough.

Homeowners, builders, architects, designers, landscapers, and commercial teams.

Yes. Catching issues early can save thousands in change orders.

Yes. It improves communication and gives everyone more confidence before construction starts.

Jesse Sampley (00:00.172)

It's not live or anything like that. The point of this is just to be real conversational. This is a show for all different types of builders, but I would say we have more custom home builders than anyone else. So the point of this is to introduce new ideas and new people in the industry to, it's an underserved market a bit. So I came across you guys on Instagram.

Joe Matejka (00:01.842)

sure.

Jesse Sampley (00:27.512)

think I had seen your ads a long time ago. I just thought it was fascinating. My dad was a home builder and I've been in the creative space for 15 years now, started with video production. So just the visual side, it makes perfect sense to me. So first...

Joe Matejka (00:31.058)

Okay. Thanks man, appreciate it. Okay. Alright.

Joe Matejka (00:48.646)

Yeah, it's kind of the story of how we rolled this thing out. It's a wild story, I'm telling you, Jesse. It's not what I would have anticipated, that's for sure. Sure, man.

Jesse Sampley (00:58.488)

Well, let's jump into it. I've got Joe Matika. Is that how you say your last name? Matika. So I've got Joe Matika, founder and president of Walk Your Plans. Joe, welcome to the Meridian Pursuit Builders podcast show. Why don't you tell us? Of course, of course, glad to have you on. So you were kind of jumping into it before, but you know, tell me a little bit about, your background into the construction building industry.

Joe Matejka (01:02.928)

Matejka, Matejka.

Joe Matejka (01:12.338)

Thanks Jesse, much appreciated.

Jesse Sampley (01:24.716)

And then maybe kind of transition that into, you know, how the walk your plans came about.

Joe Matejka (01:30.524)

Sure, yeah. So I actually had a long career in other industries and I'm very new to the construction industry and relatively speaking for my career. How we got into this particular business, Walk Your Plans, is kind of by fluke. think I had a construction project out west that I had a business partner. I built an investment property out of Yellowstone with a partner out of Salt Lake City. And what we were doing was we had a deal where he was

was the GC and donated the land and I was going to pay for the build out. So we were doing it on our own and we were doing like a lot of people do shoot our Bluebirds back and forth saying, hey, move this, you know, put this here, you know, and we felt like we just had the perfect plan. We're like, let's go, man. So I start ripping checks and he starts, you know, clearing the clearing the land and he goes to pours the foundation. And and and so we, you know, we get the first first floor.

or I'm sorry, you pour the foundation and I come out and we start walking it to kind of see how things were gonna look and line up. You know, it's a six bedroom lodge. It sleeps 26 people. It's a little deceiving because there's a bunk room. But you know, when you have 26 guests, they're usually there. Our target market, it's about four hours from Salt Lake City. So our target market is Mormon families, my partner's Mormon. Every year they do a family reunion, which means every family has two because they have moms.

Jesse Sampley (02:44.789)

Okay.

Joe Matejka (03:00.254)

side and dad's side, right? So we're kind of targeting that, right? And they do it in the summertime usually, spend a week together. So that's our target. If you have 26 people or they're just friends, they want to get together, right? You need a great room that they want to spend their time together in. Well, the joke is we wanted a great room. Man, we got a good room. It ain't great. We totally missed the mark. Neither one of us really looked at it when we were looking at the prints and said, hey,

Jesse Sampley (03:15.916)

Mm-hmm.

Jesse Sampley (03:22.082)

You

Joe Matejka (03:30.164)

I mean, it's great for eight to 10 people. It's perfect. Unfortunately, our target is bigger numbers, right? And when we found out, it was really just too late. And so, you know, we built it. I mean, it rents fine. It rents well. But I would say this. It's amazing what a fisheye lens can do. I'll just say that as far as kind of... So, yeah, man, it's... Go ahead.

Jesse Sampley (03:41.197)

man.

Jesse Sampley (03:52.395)

I know that will. the .5 on iPhone, you know, it can really do wonders with the space.

Joe Matejka (03:58.63)

For sure, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we, you know, so that that happened and that was back in 2020, as when we did that. It was actually 2020-21 because it was during COVID that we doing it. That happened almost simultaneous to that. I and a group of my friends, I'm based in Cleveland, Ohio, and a group of four of us, we bought a defunct Catholic school in Cleveland and it had been a Catholic school for 90 years. Diocese of Cleveland closed it in 05-20.

to low enrollment.

in 2020, we converted it to commercial space. when we converted it, we rented the classrooms out super easily, but we're looking to monetize the gym space. We had this big open space, didn't know what to do with it. One of my partners in the building, he's the single biggest residential builder in the west side of Cleveland. And he was the one who came to me, he goes, Joe, you know, I got an idea. He goes, I think we can figure out a way to take blueprints and project them to scale so that you can walk your print before you build. he helped me with the Idaho project.

because I think it probably would have helped you out in Idaho. I'm like, yeah, it definitely would have helped me, right? So, you know, this was in about 2021 now. so we had this space. took us about, Jesse, it took us about a year and a half to figure out the technology and how to get it to work. But once we did and we figured it out and we started it in Cleveland.

Joe Matejka (05:26.202)

I mean, this thing just took off for us. And it was one of those, I was fortunate enough to have built a previous business that was a national business in the fundraising space with schools. And I sold that to a strategic partner, put me in a position where I could retire and not have to work again. So when I did this, I really thought, heck, this is just gonna be a part-time gig, right? I'll build a business with my buddies and we'll just have some fun with this thing, right? So we launch in Cleveland in December 22.

We're about three, four months into it and I said, know, let's hire this social media woman to do some just, I thought we'd get just a local presence and kind of put our name out there. Well, seven days after I hired her, she posted a video that got over four million views. And you know, we start getting requests from all over the world.

Jesse Sampley (06:15.362)

Amazing.

Joe Matejka (06:21.093)

People saying, this is super cool, we like it, we'd to do it. You know, I'm sitting here thinking, you we had just started partnering with people in Cleveland. I was not even sure it was gonna work in Cleveland, much less nationally or worldwide, so we just kinda tabled it at that point, and so let's just keep going, right? So we're plowing ahead, and one of my partners, Jackson Heller, he and I were just looking to build Cleveland. We kicked the can down the road another six or seven months. Well, Rachel Kamisker, our social media girl, posted another video

Well, that video got over 37 million views. And then, like, stuff got uber crazy. So in 2024, our videos garnered over 200 million.

worldwide views led to some really interesting stuff. We ended up, since then we've had over 5,500 worldwide inquiries about opening locations. And I was kind of put in a position where, due to my previous experience, this is the third national slash international build out that I've been a part of. I was kind of put in a position where like, it seemed like this is gonna go, right, big. Number one, I know how to do it.

Jesse Sampley (07:06.786)

Amazing.

Joe Matejka (07:33.379)

Number two, I'm actually pretty good at it. And number three, if I don't do it, someone else is going to. So I got thrust kind of back into the thing. And so that's kind of what happened. it's led to, so we've taken the US with our business, the way we look at it, is you could put one in for every major metropolitan area. know, bigger cities like New York, LA, we have multiple locations there, obviously, due to population. But we're gonna put about 120 in the US. I will tell you, I think I mentioned to you before we started recording, Louisville's

Jesse Sampley (07:41.55)

You

Joe Matejka (08:03.44)

55th location, your old stomping grounds, said, I another 65 to go. And we're actually taking it international because we use Panasonic for our projection. they invited us to Orlando a year ago and met with their president, their five global presidents in their projection division. And he said, we can put you into five different continents. You just tell us where you want to go.

Jesse Sampley (08:05.358)

Amazing. Yeah. yeah.

Jesse Sampley (08:13.975)

Okay?

Joe Matejka (08:30.161)

will set you up. So we're actually taking, I know it's way, way, way more than I thought. mean, we were approached by Shark Tank. The producers of Shark Tank called us and invited us to come on. That was two years ago. We told them no. I will say this though.

Jesse Sampley (08:31.438)

Wow.

Jesse Sampley (08:40.109)

Really?

Joe Matejka (08:47.185)

They approached us about five weeks ago and asked us if we'd consider being on season 18. And I'll just say there's a possibility of us. We'll see. Who knows? So that's kind of cool. Yeah, anyway, but that's how it started. I just kind of I knew how to do it. And I'm like, OK, let's let's go, man. So, yeah, so we're building it.

Jesse Sampley (08:57.07)

Who knows that is cool

Jesse Sampley (09:05.366)

And how many locations do you have now that are currently open?

Joe Matejka (09:08.305)

So at 55 signed, we have 31 open. We have 24 in the process of opening. But each week, I mean, I'm talking to anywhere from eight to 10 additional locations. And you know, look, it takes a little bit to get involved in the business yet. We're looking for people with industry experience and industry background. We still have more than half the United States to fill. So if anybody's listening out there and they see our map and they don't see a pin in it, please reach out to us. Because we're looking to fill it. But yeah, that's...

Jesse Sampley (09:11.905)

Okay.

Joe Matejka (09:37.936)

kind of how it goes and we just have lot of fun with it and it's leading to some pretty cool things because now some companies are seeking us out.

Fortune 300 company that builds dental offices reach out to us and ask us if we partner with them so that they can run all 2,500 dental offices that they put in a year across the country through our facilities. So because it's critically important, know, the spatial orientation for dentists, that's their, you know, that's their center stage, right? So they call them operatorism, yeah.

Jesse Sampley (10:01.475)

Wow.

Jesse Sampley (10:09.442)

about to say, I was about to say, how is the, how has this kind of transformed over time? Cause you know, the, you know, the, the first approach would be, yeah, you know, you're to walk your plans, but even what the stuff I've seen on your Instagram is it's kind of evolving into like, you know, this is more, this is a bit more of an, of an immersive experience, not just a logistical of, Hey, is my door too close? As you know, is, am I able to make this turn? So what are, what are some of the, some of those things that you're seeing?

Joe Matejka (10:24.071)

for sure.

Jesse Sampley (10:39.554)

from the beginning until now and maybe even in the future. And if you want to touch on AI, you know, I'm sure there's a large conversation in there too.

Joe Matejka (10:41.041)

Sure.

Joe Matejka (10:45.049)

Sure, right, right, right. So I think when you start a business, you kind of solve your own problem, And so mine was a residential construction deal. my buddy and partner, and he's a partner in this business too, is a residential builder. So we thought, let's move towards residential, which we do a lot of. But as this thing's evolving, we're seeing more and more applications for commercial use.

You know, it from residential to residential commercial architects, interior designers. Crazy enough, landscapers and landscape architects, their stuff is highly visual. People aren't very spatially oriented, so it really works well for them. We have realtors who are pre-selling construction projects. We have a realtor in Cleveland who was going to put in, I'm sorry, six condos in a nice area, Greater Cleveland, sold all six of them on our floor.

Jesse Sampley (11:24.29)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Matejka (11:42.211)

before he stuck a shovel in the ground. It's amazing. I mean, you know, and so I think, you know, if you you asked me a year and a half ago, I think I would have told you, oh, we got 65, 70 percent of this thing figured out. Jess, I gotta tell you, I don't know if we have 25 percent of it figured out. It's just the applications that are coming to us and hey, what about this and these kinds of things. We've been very fortunate to, so yeah, I think.

Jesse Sampley (12:05.58)

And it sounds like you're pretty open to it evolving too, into whatever it needs to be. It's a space that will serve people you don't even know about. And those people will keep coming forward as more and more people know about it.

Joe Matejka (12:10.152)

for sure. Yeah.

Joe Matejka (12:21.764)

Yeah, and I think a couple things that are kind of happening. know, marketplace is a dynamic place if you're in business. kind of what appears to be happening is companies have identified walk your plans as the business that's going to truly take this thing national and potentially international. So what's happening now is we now have companies coming to us and saying, hey, look, we've got enhancements. We think that your product paired with our product could have

really big upside. what we're doing and

You know, we're getting probably one to three of those requests a week. And what's great about our licensee base, we're a licensing organization, but we've got some real talented people in our program. And our St. Louis licensee happens to be, he ran the tech department for an $11 billion commercial construction company, the eighth largest in the United States. So everything that comes to us technology wise, we vet through him and through our licensee in Seattle who was a

executive with Meta So we've got the red eyeballs on it and if it's an enhancement and it will make things better we're gonna add it and we're gonna have it we're gonna offer it. You have to as with anything and you like you're it lays you knotted to AI you know your business evolves and you and you got to try to stay out front of it right so

Jesse Sampley (13:45.091)

We, IBS wasn't too long ago and, down in Orlando. And that was kind of the main, one of the main topics was, you know, how, you know, AI is already here on a, on a customer side, a customer's coming to us and saying, Hey, look at these plans or look at these renderings or look at my idea, because, you know, I don't know exactly how to articulate it, but now I've got something that I can easily talk to. And then, and then now his, you know, render and generate.

Joe Matejka (13:49.572)

Yep.

Jesse Sampley (14:13.42)

you know, whatever I'm thinking sometimes on a, in an interesting way, but you know, they, there's some logic now there's, there's logic to that to say, okay, well that, you know, now we're taking this idea, but now we've got to put this in the real world. and I think something like this is just incredible on a, you know, yes, on a, on a sales side, but two, just on a, you know, cost saving size for, for builders to say, Hey, you know, we've, heard a testimonial, on one of your social pages, which

Joe Matejka (14:15.866)

Sure.

Jesse Sampley (14:42.082)

You know, she'd made, she'd come in there for one change. ended up making 13 changes and all I could think of was like, man, those are 13 change orders that, know, at the end of the day, it saved her, you know, all, all of those changes just because it's, it's no one's fault. It's just, you know, you're, building, you're building, it's not built yet, you know, and, and you can, especially for a more visual person is just like, I don't really know until I see it.

Joe Matejka (14:46.052)

Yeah. Yep.

Joe Matejka (14:50.776)

Right. Yeah.

Joe Matejka (14:56.057)

Sure.

Joe Matejka (15:04.079)

Yeah.

Joe Matejka (15:10.128)

Yeah, the truth is I've had not just the Idaho project, but fortunately I a couple other homes and in each one of them. I'm that guy, Jesse. I'm the guy who can't see it. I could not visualize and I will tell you that the internal angst that gave me in construction projects is something I won't forget that. You're writing big checks and you're just hoping that what's going to come out the other end of the pipe is going to be what you want, right? And so to give you an example,

Jesse Sampley (15:31.79)

Yeah.

Joe Matejka (15:40.035)

For our average client who comes through per hour, they're going to make anywhere from 10 to 20 changes per hour.

And I mean, you take and put a $2,000 price on a change order, you do 10 of them, that's $20,000 in savings in an hour. And there's some big ones we see too. And additionally, here's, I would say in our business, the thing I'm most proud of so far in Cleveland, we've had over 1,000 people walk since we opened the doors.

Jesse Sampley (15:49.272)

Wow.

Joe Matejka (16:13.776)

And after about six months, I realized that we hadn't had anybody come through yet and be like, you know, it was really cool, but I didn't really get anything out of it. Right. So I said to my partner, Jackson, I go, Jackson, man, I go, I know someone's going to complain soon, but so far we haven't been able complain. Interestingly enough, we're three and a half years downstream. We have yet to have a single end user. I know I'm jinxing myself here on your broadcast on your podcast, but it'll happen next week, probably. But we have yet.

Jesse Sampley (16:23.04)

You

Joe Matejka (16:43.69)

with over thousand people. Furthermore, the end user comes out the other end, profusely thanking us.

I believe that their belief in their builder is a lot stronger and they're very thankful to have the experience. It just makes us feel good. You want to deliver a product that adds value to people's lives and offering something that's good. I feel really, really strongly about what we do.

Jesse Sampley (17:06.83)

I bet, yeah.

Jesse Sampley (17:15.65)

Do people usually come in with their builders?

Joe Matejka (17:19.856)

Most do, yeah. So we do have direct-to-consumer folks who come in. We have a partnership with Architectural Designs, they're a nation's largest online blueprint company, great partners with us. And they have their folks come in, and some of those folks may not have a builder yet, and they're just kind of trying to decide which plan they want to do. But most of our clients will come in with a builder, or an architect, or a designer, if it's exterior, obviously, landscapers. And in those scenarios, those are our partners, or we'll just kind

to do a one-off thing. On those walks, basically the professional will lead them through the walk because they kind of know where the pain points would lie and things that they really want to make sure that everybody's comfortable with. But if they come to us direct, our folks pretty much know where to look for the problems. There's things you see all the time. Kitchen Islands, we move about two out of three Kitchen Islands it seems like. That's just one. It's an easy one. People just don't leave enough room for it. But we see that one all the time.

Jesse Sampley (18:07.021)

Mm-hmm.

Jesse Sampley (18:17.272)

Now, what would you say to someone who says, there's a, you know, there there's always, you know, best practices, you know, here's how much you're supposed to have from your dishwasher when you open it to the other side of your Island, things like that. Like what makes the difference of just actually seeing it, you know, even for a builder who's, you know, built hundreds or thousands of homes, you know, what are some of these aha moments that maybe they're having while they're walking their own plans?

Joe Matejka (18:35.14)

sure.

Joe Matejka (18:40.695)

Sure, interestingly enough we had...

A months ago we had a builder, a builder in Cleveland, he's been a builder for 35 years. He's an older guy like me, not like you, young guys. But he came in, walked the print for his son that he was building. And we always put a doormat on so that you walk in the front door of your dream house, right? And you start there. So he walks in, takes about, I don't know, six to eight steps. so off to the left was the kitchen area. And he turns left and he immediately

he stops and goes, damn it. He goes, this isn't big enough. And his first name's Tom, I won't reveal his last name, but go, Tom. go, how long you been in the houses for? Come on, brother. But he was using the standard 42 inch clearance, and it wasn't big enough. He needed it to be bigger. But we see that all the time. And look, again, guys use standards, right? This will be adequate, right? Here's what is unique about when you come in and you walk.

Jesse Sampley (19:30.123)

Yeah.

Joe Matejka (19:44.226)

know, our videos are neat. think one of the reasons we've grown so quickly is ours is easy to explain by watching a video. So you can look at it and say, that makes sense, right? So that adds to our viewership. the real, where the rubber hits the road is when you're in our studio and you're walking your print and you're really just looking at a shadow on the ground.

Jesse Sampley (19:55.416)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Matejka (20:10.211)

But you feel as if you're immersed in your space. And I just can't verbally translate that so that people can really understand it until they do it. But when they do it, the conversations people have, they feel as if they're in their space and they're debating things and they're making choices that are going to be great choices. And at the end of the day, you know, most everybody, their house is, you know, their biggest investment in most cases, right? It's your dream. Everything you've worked for, you know, you're putting into that thing.

And we're allowing you for the first time ever to really put your stamp of approval on it and get it exactly how you want it to be. Not necessarily through your architect or your builder or anything like that, but as a homeowner, you're getting what you want. And we feel really good about that. had a lady a month ago, said she had asked her architect to move this thing five times. And she was in our space and she goes,

Jesse Sampley (20:59.278)

That's it.

Joe Matejka (21:10.075)

time we're going to get it moved. I was like, there you go. It's kind of funny.

Jesse Sampley (21:15.544)

So walk me through the, like, so you guys are projecting the plans. As far as making adjustments or any of that, how do people have to bring the plans to you? Is it a certain file type or?

Joe Matejka (21:28.879)

So yeah, mean, you know really largely we project PDFs, we ask for PDFs, but if they bring their architect or if they have a draftsman, depending on who they're working with, they can live change it if they're professionals. We're not qualified to do that, obviously, as a projection studio, but they're able to do it. What we are able to do is populate prints with furniture. One of the advancements, or enhancements I should say we've made, is that

We have a library of furniture that you can populate every print with. Hey, I got a 102 inch couch. Okay, great. Where do you want us to lay it in? We can lay it in right there. We also have a three dimensional way of overlaying your furniture as well so that you can look at it three dimensional. Again, these are some of the enhancements that are coming to us as we grow. That wasn't something we originally offered, but it's as we go and as we grow. Look, you want to evolve.

Jesse Sampley (22:05.231)

very cool.

Jesse Sampley (22:13.968)

really?

Joe Matejka (22:28.689)

of your business, you've already become extinct. We have no intention of becoming extinct. We're gonna keep pushing the envelope.

Jesse Sampley (22:35.372)

Yeah, I would say, you know, the, the generative side is, you know, is probably coming up pretty fast. I'll just say, you know, I don't know what to do with this empty space, but let me just prompt an idea for what to be here. And then based on like the other designs of the house, like it's, it's creating something. I think that's, you know, that's where AI, you know, kind of comes in and, know, kind of supports us as like, you know, we, know, you know, a lot, but.

there's not that thread of consistency of, remember when you thought this, you know, three months ago, and now I'm bringing it to you now? Like we just, human brains don't really work quite that way. So to be able to have that consistency, you know, and prompt ideas that we've already had, or, you know, be able to form new ideas based on what we've already given it. You know, I think that'll be pretty cool to see in a couple of years of just, hey, what kind of ideas is it giving us, you know, based on what we're giving it?

Joe Matejka (23:32.835)

Right. For sure, yeah.

Jesse Sampley (23:34.222)

And then seeing it projected and seeing it in real life and then, you know, ultimately being able to see that built.

Joe Matejka (23:40.739)

Yeah, I mean, just, again, you know, go to your own pain points, right? And I always go back to remembering what that felt like. And it didn't feel good. Like, it did not feel good to not know what I was getting, you know? So I love that we're helping at least build a little bit of a bridge to people to help them get that and hopefully relieve some of their anxiety and again, deliver a better product in the end.

Jesse Sampley (23:54.126)

Ha

Jesse Sampley (24:06.846)

yeah. It seems like another good thing even just to walk your subs through, know, depending on what type of project it is, is, know, just to kind of really.

Joe Matejka (24:13.784)

We have a lot of people do that, yep.

And we've got that big elevation wall too. So MEPs, can do those on the walls. can figure out everybody's pre-construction stuff. We have a lot of our guys who will come in without their clients and work through their stuff. Our landscapers will come and they'll walk their guys through a project. If they're going on site, my one guy goes, he goes, you know, whenever we're doing a project, does fairly extensive landscaping projects. First half a day, I got my guys just walking around in circles. He goes, I bring them in and

Jesse Sampley (24:45.259)

Love that.

Joe Matejka (24:46.618)

an hour I'm like we're going here here here and here so when you hit the ground Monday morning let's go right and so there's a lot of applications for it other than just you know client facing as well.

Jesse Sampley (24:52.513)

Well.

Jesse Sampley (24:57.41)

What's, how does the pricing work on something like that?

Joe Matejka (25:00.718)

So we're a licensing organization, so it varies per market. Our licensees have the ability to set their own pricing. they have different costs depending on where they are. Guy in maybe our Tyler, Texas location doesn't have the same overhead as our Los Angeles person. So the range is anywhere from 850 an hour to 1,500 an hour. And we do have a couple who are a little bit higher than that based on where they're located.

Jesse Sampley (25:04.961)

Okay.

Jesse Sampley (25:19.201)

Okay.

Joe Matejka (25:28.824)

But yes, that's the range.

Jesse Sampley (25:32.674)

And how long does it usually take for, you know, let's say, you know, five to 10,000 square foot home or something like that.

Joe Matejka (25:39.662)

So, residentially, if you're doing a residential project, you can work 2,500 to 3,000 square feet per hour. you know, and we get a lot of houses, know, 3,000, 4,000 square feet, down up to my Los Angeles location open. We talked to him after his first walkthrough. His first walkthrough was at 55,000 square foot home. I was like, holy cow.

Jesse Sampley (25:46.603)

Okay.

Joe Matejka (26:05.423)

I'm from Cleveland, man, that just hit me. Okay, that's fun. Hey, I got one for you. So about eight weeks ago, it's a Friday evening, and I got a call from my partner Jackson. He goes, you're never gonna believe this. He goes, guess who just walked through her home and posted about it on Instagram? Kim Kardashian.

Jesse Sampley (26:07.982)

It's amazing.

Jesse Sampley (26:25.781)

Nuh-uh.

Joe Matejka (26:26.036)

She's a paid customer. She came through, walked her plan, and my guys, you know, and then she thought it was so cool that she posted about it. I knew she was hugely popular, but I looked her up. has over 364 million followers. And as a freebie for us, I'm like, she really liked what we do. It was kind of cool. It was fun.

Jesse Sampley (26:49.9)

Let me know on a business side, you've got a lot of organic attention. what a lot of people, that's great, right? Gold standard of, we want to get attention. Sometimes you're having to pay for that and you're having to do all these strategies just to get the attention. That's not an issue for you guys. It's kind of seemed to happen organically. How are you then monetizing that and saying, okay, now we're converting all this attention into something that's real, either

You know, how, how was that other side working for you on a marketing side of getting, you know, the, to the next step.

Joe Matejka (27:27.316)

So really, path forward for us, there's two paths, right? There's the direct to consumer path and that kind of stuff. Organic growth is really, really good for that. Reality though is that where the rubber hits the road is in the partnerships. We want to partner with builders. We want to partner with architects and we'll give them a discount to bring their folks through. Architects, builders, interior designers, landscapers, realtors, those people are rather, when we started the

business, Jesse, we were pole fishing, direct to consumer, pulling fish into the boat one at a time. And it didn't take us long to figure, why don't we cast a net? Let's get the builder and have him bring all his folks through. Interestingly enough, we're building at least in Cleveland and our other markets. Cleveland's the biggest, or been the longest running. It was neat, a couple months ago had someone who was going to build a home.

Jesse Sampley (28:06.446)

you

Joe Matejka (28:23.126)

and they had three builders they were considering, two of which were our partners, one wasn't. They came to us first and because the third didn't partner with us, he was eliminated from the process. So that was evolutionary for us. We felt really good about that. We're like, okay, we're making some headway. That's kind of neat, right? So if we're the gold standard and they're not meeting it, know, where are you at? So that was fun.

Jesse Sampley (28:45.226)

Yeah. No, that's, that's, that's really awesome. And it's, know, tell me a little bit about the, and you touched on a bit earlier, but just, you know, what, what are some of the big grand visions that you have, you know, 10, 15 years down the road, you know, is that completely, you know, getting to your 120 locations here in the U S and then focusing, focusing internationally or maybe just cast that vision for us.

Joe Matejka (29:08.398)

Yeah, sure, sure. So, you know, when we started, as I mentioned, I've had experience in building a national and international business. And there's kind of two numbers you're looking for when you're building.

if you want to scale your business. The first is proof of concept. a lot of times there's a business that has one location and it's very good. Well, why is it good? Is there something particular about the owner of that business? Is it a restaurant where the chef's just spectacular and you can't replicate that? But if you can get five independent locations doing the same thing and having successes, that's proof of concept, okay? And then the second number you want to look at, which is critical math.

And that's can you assemble enough units in a short period of time? And for me, I look at getting to 20 to 25 in a relatively short period of time to say that you have enough critical mass that there's enough momentum that no matter what, you're gonna be the ones who are gonna get there. So I would, at least from my crystal ball and my experience, Jesse, I would say that, you know, because of where we are in this business, we're kind of the company that's gonna end up, you know, really kind of taking this thing.

Jesse Sampley (30:05.698)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Matejka (30:21.691)

national and additionally you know from our perspective very important for us to sew up the US market and button that down and kind of you know have your defenses right if you have a good thing it's going to be copied people are going to try to come into your space and figure it out

and they will. But that's our focus right now is US. And then we are having international, I will say it's looking like we're very close to signing our first Canadian licensee. So we are simultaneously doing that. I don't want to curse myself on that. We don't have that one in the barn yet. So we'll see where we go. yeah, so that's kind of how you look to build it. But again, the US market is just so important. You really want to sew that up first.

Jesse Sampley (31:04.79)

Yeah. Well, and again, it's there's, the, you know, you just look at the construction area. mean, look at the building market and then, you know, you mentioned landscapers, you mentioned commercial, you mentioned all these other, you know, they're, very similar, but I mean, there's to own that market. mean, that's just, that's a massive market, you know, and the versatility of this for the different applications, you know, is pretty much unlimited when.

you boil it down to say like, we're just helping people visualize in this room, you know, that, you know, from plans. mean, it really could go anywhere, you know, which is, which is pretty cool. I would make of a heck of a, a cinema room.

Joe Matejka (31:43.728)

Yeah, I'll t-

Joe Matejka (31:47.138)

Yeah, right. So, my partner Jess's wife Alexis, probably about a year ago, she was the first one who actually said, she goes, this is gonna change the construction industry. And I'm not one who's...

I was uncomfortable with that, would say, for a while. But the further we go down the road, the more I've come to realize she's actually right. Because some of the businesses that are coming to us and wanting to partner with us are huge, huge businesses. Commercial businesses, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, one of the biggest and best hospitals in the world, they've walked four or five different projects through us right now. And when you see these folks come in,

And look, look at the commercial side of it, right? There's huge risk in these commercial projects. If they get it wrong, there's huge, there's all kinds of risk. And we mitigate that risk. We keep you on time, we keep you on budget, we keep things moving, right? And so I really do feel like we're changing an industry.

Jesse Sampley (32:40.737)

yeah.

Jesse Sampley (32:52.416)

You are, I mean, who's your competitor?

Joe Matejka (32:55.821)

There really isn't any competitor to beat. There are other companies out there trying and I don't want to besmirch that. don't think that... Yeah, no.

Jesse Sampley (32:59.168)

It's, mean...

I mean, I mean on the, on the large scale, I, you know, I kind of mean like who's a competitor to the, to the idea of this. And it's like, well, you know, we're just, you know, nothing to scale, which is where the issue, you know, that's what we're prob solving for.

Joe Matejka (33:09.225)

Absolutely nothing.

The blue tape you put on the ground. Yeah, yeah. The blue tape you put on the ground. That's her competitor. I think we can beat him.

Jesse Sampley (33:18.708)

Yeah. I think, yeah, I think you can find some more issues to solve than that. And like you said, it's when, you know, when you're talking to real dollars, it's like, man, the investment that you're going to put in here, I mean, it's nothing, you know, compared to what it pays for itself and one change. It's just, it would be silly not to.

Joe Matejka (33:35.321)

my gosh. For sure.

For sure. For sure. No, you're right.

Jesse Sampley (33:42.985)

and maybe even make it full experience to it, you know, cause if it's, know, you, you've got these locations and these larger markets, but, know, if you go to your, to your website, you can see all the locations, the ones that are active and the ones that are, that are coming soon. But Hey, make a trip of it, you know, make a weekend, go to, Chattanooga, go to, Orlando, go to Tampa, you know, make a weekend out of it. And, you know, really based in the, you know, the overall experience, you know,

instead of it just being a quick transactional thing.

Joe Matejka (34:13.198)

What?

We're having people do that, you know, and a lot of our place a lot of our studios now Have a whole like we're evenings and weekends where are the projectors are such high quality that they're actually using them for event space So some of our locations are super tricked out and in Cleveland when you say about making an event of it You know when we were the only location we regularly had people flying in from California Texas Florida and they because we were the only opportunity for them to do it, know now that the obvious is

Jesse Sampley (34:28.417)

Ha ha ha!

Jesse Sampley (34:41.23)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Matejka (34:44.783)

somewhat localized. They're able to kind of go to it, but you're exactly right, Jesse. People are doing that, they're making a day of it, having some fun with it, which is cool. Again, people's homes, that's their dream. That's their vision, right? And it's so important and so emotional, and we just love helping people with that. It's just awesome.

Jesse Sampley (34:57.208)

Yeah.

Jesse Sampley (35:03.55)

yeah. Well, like you said, having all these people come through and being the one that's solving the problem and that person being like, Hey man, thank you for this, you know, cause there is no other opportunity to do something like this. you know, I don't think that that, that, that consumer, like you're not going to get it complaints because, it, they're coming to the table, not from an experiential side of saying, Hey, what can you give me? there is no expectation.

You know, it's almost like, we are giving to you. We're giving your plans to you. that's just a totally different mindset. you know, I would think on a customer experience side is, you know, it's kind of you and them together against, you know, this, the set of plans that we're going to solve. there's something that needs to fix.

Joe Matejka (35:38.413)

Yeah, it does.

Joe Matejka (35:49.623)

There's huge gratitude. it's, it just feels great. It feels great to do. It's kind of funny though. So the, the, what, one of the areas where we learned a lot was we initially got a lot of blowback from architects and we thought they'd our biggest allies initially, but kind of what we've come to figure out is architects are kind of the artists of the construction industry. You know, it's their design that, that, you know, people buy and the vision and, and it is

kind of funny and I hope I don't take off some of our architect friends out there when I say this but we kind of learned that they don't necessarily like people looking at their blueprint and making a ton of modifications. It's kind of like that old axiom no one wants to be told that their baby's ugly. In a print sometime it's it's just I'll just say it's a little touchy you know it's we just kind of to play that soft but you know but again the person who's paying them that's who we were here.

Jesse Sampley (36:36.462)

You

Joe Matejka (36:49.581)

that we weren't, you know, and the architects are too. I make a joke of it, but it's kind of funny to see.

Jesse Sampley (36:57.292)

I saw that in the, we did premium type video production and, you know, that we'd work with a lot of directors from, from all over the U S and kind of a similar mindset to where, you know, I've got the vision and this is, this is my vision. And it's like, yeah, but you have a customer, you have a client, you know, you have someone that you're servicing, you know, you're, still in the service industry. know, you are providing a service to them. So, you know, can't,

Joe Matejka (37:02.679)

Okay.

Joe Matejka (37:21.514)

Right, right, right.

Jesse Sampley (37:25.358)

You can't let the ego take over a bit. know, everything is is a, is an art piece for you. It's like, no, you're building art for this person. You know, so this is just an extra, an extra layer of service that you can provide them by, you know, letting them immerse themselves into what you built, you know, and modifications are going to come. That's the natural process or should be.

Joe Matejka (37:31.373)

for sure.

No.

Joe Matejka (37:45.325)

Sure, really cool story. So when we were just opened, gosh, three, four months, and we got a call from a guy who said, hey, I'm sure you've heard of Frank Lloyd Wright, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, most folks know who he is, right? So he died in 1959, and when he died, he had just finished a drawing, or a blueprint, for a gentleman out of Cleveland, Ohio. And the gentleman owned a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Cleveland.

Jesse Sampley (37:56.726)

yeah.

Joe Matejka (38:12.653)

but they were looking at putting the interstate highway system through Cleveland, I-90 runs through Cleveland, and it was going to go directly over that guy's house. So he commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to give him a new design to their house for him, which he did. Frank Lloyd Wright promptly dies with those prints still on his drawing table. Well, since the guy bought it, they rerouted I-90, never knocked the guy's house down. They sent the prints to the homeowner.

Jesse Sampley (38:33.625)

well.

Joe Matejka (38:41.676)

nothing ever happened. homeowner was, the home was turned over three times. In 2023, the people who owned it decided, you know what, we're gonna build this thing. So there was a TV special on the Hallmark network, Hallmark network called The Last Right.

and they actually came, the homeowner for the first time saw the blueprint at our Walk Your Plants facility in Cleveland. That was actually in episode one, it was kind of neat. Yeah, they got to see it and the home subsequently been built, it's now you can rent it on Airbnb, but it's pretty cool. It's pretty cool to see that and be part of that. that's neat, Yeah.

Jesse Sampley (39:11.039)

Wow.

Jesse Sampley (39:20.3)

That's really cool. I'm sure you've got stories for days, you know, when you start thinking about it of, all the people you've helped and all the, all the experiences that have come out of it. Like what's, what's better in business than that? You know, that's the, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Well, Joe, wanted to ask who are some people in the, the industry that you really admire people that you think are doing a great job, you know, running their business or.

Joe Matejka (39:26.764)

Cool stuff.

Joe Matejka (39:33.292)

Yeah, you're helping people, right? Solve a problem, make something better.

Jesse Sampley (39:48.642)

you know, taking care of people, people that you've kind of bumped into along the way that you really admire.

Joe Matejka (39:54.163)

So one of the big proponents for us is Matt Reisinger from The Build Show. Matt's a guy who, you know, we were introduced to him about a year ago. he, him and his organization, Mark Willis, one of his key people, and Mark found us and he goes, you know, we really like what you guys do. We think it's neat. We think it adds a lot of value. And they asked us to be part of their show.

Jesse Sampley (39:58.679)

Yeah.

Joe Matejka (40:22.442)

they have a build show live, which they do every year. They asked us to come down to Dallas last year and do it. And so we did it and it was a really good learning experience for us because it was really our first straight show that we had been involved in. And they asked us if we'd do a live event at our Dallas studio. So we did. we invited over 300 people came and we weren't sure if Matt was going to come because Matt's a celebrity at his own deal, right? So Matt

Jesse Sampley (40:24.14)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Matejka (40:52.366)

But then we heard at the last minute, Matt's coming by. He'll be by for 15 minutes. I'm like, 15 minutes is 15 minutes. It beats zero, right? So he comes by and spent an hour and 45 minutes in our space. And he asked us, he's like, could you clear the space so I could shoot some video in your space? Which was really cool. It was so flattering, right? So it was just great to have him come through and just be like, there's so many different people we've had a chance to meet.

Jesse Sampley (41:15.438)

Yeah.

Joe Matejka (41:22.286)

I haven't met that many national, my focus is mostly local, you just see a lot of different people come to you and ask and we try to get everybody back to their local market if we have a location anywhere near them and if they come to us we'll spin them back to the local folks and let them work with it.

Jesse Sampley (41:34.701)

Mm-hmm.

Jesse Sampley (41:41.004)

The people that get a license to be able to do this in their city, what type of person is that usually?

Joe Matejka (41:48.385)

The majority of them are industry people. We do have builders. Our LA guy, he's a real estate syndicator. Our guys in Manhattan, they build restaurants. When they came to Cleveland and interviewed with us, they said, know, they build high-end restaurants. They happen to mention that...

There was a magazine article the previous month of 14 best restaurants in Manhattan. And then they casually mentioned that they had built three of them, which holy cow.

Jesse Sampley (42:18.414)

Ha

Joe Matejka (42:20.892)

Ironically two weeks ago. were in New York and they took us to one of them and it was a good restaurant Really enjoyed it as you can see from my images. I know how to eat so you know But yes, mostly industry people again Chris our guys is an architect and we have a lot of architects with some realtors quite a few realtors are Minneapolis licensees a realtor mostly industry people or their entrepreneurs And and I think it's a little bit easier if you have some industry contacts obviously to get some doors open

Jesse Sampley (42:28.078)

You

Joe Matejka (42:50.446)

When we started, yeah, for sure, right? Yeah, when we started in Cleveland, you we scratched and clawed uphill with a new concept and you had to kind of do it. Our people who are coming in now, we've plowed a little bit of snow for them, I'd say a little bit. when, you know, IBS, so ironically that the dental company, I had to go to Chicago to meet them. My partner was at IBS. And when we went last year in Las Vegas, we didn't think anybody would know us.

Jesse Sampley (42:51.47)

At least you can use it for yourself at that.

Jesse Sampley (43:06.19)

Mm-hmm.

Joe Matejka (43:20.366)

And I will tell you that two out of three people we talked to had seen our videos. And you I guess you nerd out on what your industry is or what your interests are, right? And we didn't realize that our videos had had that kind of penetration that they did. But you know, so and actually next year we're going to be the entry way to IBS where they build the homes. We're actually going to be out there next year. So we're partnering with a company doing that. so you will see us if you're out. If you're in Vegas, Jesse, you to come by and say hi, man.

Jesse Sampley (43:26.999)

Wow.

Jesse Sampley (43:30.402)

Yeah.

Jesse Sampley (43:44.368)

awesome.

Jesse Sampley (43:48.503)

I'm sure we'll be out there. Yeah. It was convenient for us since we're here in Florida to drift drive over to Orlando, but we're going to we're planning on making a trip next year in Vegas. What?

Joe Matejka (43:50.286)

so sure yeah of course

Very cool. I'm looking for someone on Ocala slash Gainesville. You gotta help me out, Jesse. There you go. Fair enough.

Jesse Sampley (44:05.774)

I might, I'm asking some of these questions for myself, but, seriously, what's the, you know, some of, some of the criteria, you know, as far as, know, the building that they need and, and, and some of that, like, how do you guys kind of help facilitate, you know, the model or, you know, just, just what does that look like on their side for a new person?

Joe Matejka (44:25.247)

So yeah, sure.

So for our licensees, we will help them identify the right space. A couple things you need to have. Most of our locations, our location happens to be in a defunct Catholic school. We are definitely the one. We had the building before we had the business. Our other folks get the business and then they have to find a building. very typically it's light industrial warehouse space, 3,000 to 4,000 square feet. The projection field in most of our, in Cleveland we're perfectly square.

Jesse Sampley (44:42.582)

Yeah.

Joe Matejka (44:58.948)

50 projection field, but most of our spaces will be like a 40 by 50 or 40 by 60 foot projection field. I'll tell you that if you stand in a corner of a blueprint, you can't visually see more than 40 feet and you wouldn't be able to identify what it was. If we stood in a corner and I said, tell me what that is over there, Jess, you wouldn't be able to tell me what it is. and we work our prints room to room. So I would say that you want to look at your image like a giant air hockey puck.

Jesse Sampley (45:15.83)

Okay.

Joe Matejka (45:27.389)

on a giant air hockey table, we can go endlessly and move things endlessly and go room to room as you work the print.

Jesse Sampley (45:29.164)

Mm-hmm.

Jesse Sampley (45:35.925)

Okay. And amazing. You've got an amazing company. You've got an amazing reputation. It's how you guys show up online, which is kind of my field of just a lot of people in the builder and construction space. It's like I said earlier, I feel like it's an underserved market. So I see a lot of outdated companies online.

Joe Matejka (45:43.211)

Thank you.

Jesse Sampley (46:00.575)

And you call these people and they're not outdated at all. You know, they're, they're stronger than they've ever been. They've been around for 40, 50 years. And, you know, my sale was pretty much like, man, let's make this match. You know, like the word of mouth and you know, what you have locally on a reputation side. But you know, when someone's and this is really crucial here in Florida too, is that, you know, people who come out of town. Yeah, they don't know that they're brand new.

So, you know, they, all starts with a Google search or a chat and GPT search or, you know, something on social media, you start doing some sort of research online. And if it doesn't match what the experience you're going to have, or, there's just a disconnect, man, you just lose trust so fast. And it's like, I don't know who that person or, or they're never even given the opportunity because they don't, they don't show up whatsoever. So that's been a real passion of ours is like, Hey, let's, let's lift.

all of these boats, know, rising tide lifts all boats. Like let's be part of that tide to just lift some of these, these up because, know, kind of my, even my dad's friends, you know, I really hated seeing these people that were in business for 30, 40, 50 years. And it was just like, I mean, you're, don't even come up on a basic Google search. and there's a lot of younger people that, know, are, getting homes built and are trying to develop,

Joe Matejka (47:13.643)

It's tough,

Jesse Sampley (47:19.65)

commercial properties and they're trying to do all these other things, you should be given that opportunity.

Joe Matejka (47:21.259)

sure.

Joe Matejka (47:25.495)

I'll tell you our social media folks, Rachel Kamisky, Alana Munroz, our director of marketing, does a phenomenal job for us. And they're really interactive. mean, they're constantly, you know, we get a lot of requests, people finding us on social media, and they're always on top of the program. They do an outstanding job. Our creative director Andrew DeCrane, he does a lot of stuff. We just have really talented people. I'm very fortunate to have a really strong team supporting us. So, thank you.

Jesse Sampley (47:42.178)

Mm-hmm.

Jesse Sampley (47:51.106)

Well, it really shines through on all aspects. But Joe, I've extremely enjoyed this conversation with you and learning more about Walker plans. Let people know how they can learn more and connect with you.

Joe Matejka (47:58.091)

You as well, Jesse.

Joe Matejka (48:05.373)

Sure. Well, we're on all your social media sites. We're very large on Instagram, Facebook.

to

it where we're not, we'd like to talk to you about it if you're interested. So Jesse, thanks so much for having me on. I really appreciate it. It was a really fun experience for me and God love you man. Keep building brother. I'm happy for you.

Jesse Sampley (48:46.808)

Amazing, amazing.

Jesse Sampley (48:57.001)

Awesome. Thank you so much! All right, so Joe, I'm going to stop recording.