Remodeling Rebel
Doing things outside the norm is the norm for Diana Pauro.
Pauro, founder of Rebel Builders in Newton, Mass., opened her design-build company at 29. Hailing from Argentina, identifying as queer, and being a woman, Pauro knew her career as a general contractor was atypical, given just 11% of the construction workforce is women. She also breathed systems, implementing Buildertrend and processes fit for a team despite working solo in her company’s infancy.
The name, Rebel Builders, represents Pauro’s business outlook and identity.
“I was in search of a name that could say how much we wanted to do things differently,” says Pauro. “This philosophy of always finding a way beyond the traditional methods of construction, beyond the stereotypes of who builds, who’s designing, who’s making the decisions, and how business is done.”
Four years in, it’s fair to say that Pauro’s goal is coming to fruition with a team of 21 and 50% revenue growth in the past year.
Remembering Lessons
Pauro spent her adolescence familiarizing herself with the jobsite and design, learning from her parents—not so out of the norm for a remodeler, except that her experience came in rural Argentina.
From the age of 15, the first time working with an architect, Pauro's life became design and construction. She worked to gain a Master's degree in Architecture, then moved to Boston from Argentina in 2017, where she spent two years at another construction company.
But the nonconformist found a lack of synergy in American construction and a desire for constant improvement. Enter Rebel Builders.
Pauro brought with her the experience of Argentinian construction and its unique challenges, helping to gain a step in terms of budgeting, planning, and design.
For one, homes and buildings in Argentina typically are constructed from concrete.
“That means that whatever you do has to last longer, because that remodeling concrete, you can imagine, is not easy,” explains Pauro. “Because we are taught we're trained to think a little bit more further in the years, thinking about a very good layout from the get-go, thinking of very good construction from the get-go, and being very technical is very important.”
The ups and downs of the economy, and especially inflation rates the past few years, are nothing unusual for Pauro who has seen as much as 90% increases in price in Argentina. It’s a large reason why she operates on a design-build model, ensuring there remains a strong emphasis on budget and cohesion between design, production, and the client, and why she began offering rendering services with her very first client.
“It's not even thinkable in other places of the world where economies are in much dire straits,” Pauro says of other design-bid-build models. “You have to plan with a budget, you have to be realistic, you have to have a great relationship between the person with the paper and the person with a spreadsheet, making sure that all the efforts of envisioning that house is actually going to be accomplished.”
Redefining Construction
Pauro’s ability to increase her team size by 25% and revenue by 50% in the last year speaks to her passion for supporting the next generation.
Experience is not required to have a shot at joining the Rebel squad, just motivation and similar values with a hunger to learn. Supporting young talent wanting to join the trades influenced Pauro to begin an internship, which she’s gained two employees from.
Rebel’s social media presence portrays a supportive, high-quality remodeling company that doesn’t just attract clients, but potential employees.
“Whenever you are looking at our posts, and I know from feedback from people, it seems that it's pretty obvious how we operate because people come to us,” says Pauro.
And together, the Rebel team thrives off of the value of processes and systems instilled by Pauro. Each decision is made through the eyes of the client and the team’s experience, all put into their living manual deemed “Rebelpedia.”
Curating a team that goes against the traditional, combined with systems as a guiding principle, creates clients that come back and back again, the ultimate goal of Rebel Builders.
“I feel like the most beautiful thing that we collectively build, beyond these homes, is this quality of service that is gonna constantly be trying to improve, to be able to elevate the experience for the homeowners,” says Pauro.
