The on-site tool for NZ residential builders.
Built on the tools. Used on the tools.
Build Centre is a mobile compliance tool for NZ residential builders. Below is everything that matters about the company on one page.
A nine-chapter walk through the company. Read top to bottom for the full picture. Jump to any chapter once you know the structure.
NZS 3604:2011 — the rulebook for every residential timber build in New Zealand — is 600+ pages3. It's sold as a PDF. It's not searchable on a phone. It's not contextual. And builders use it daily, on site, in the rain, with gloves on.
Every fixing question on every job follows the same loop. Younger builder asks the senior. Senior checks the architectural plans. Plans don't specify, so they check NZS 3604 or the supplier booklet. If it requires Specific Engineering Design (SED), they call the engineer — that adds hours, sometimes a day.
We've sat through this loop ourselves. On the Saint Marys Bay renovation in March 2026, three qualified builders stopped work for twenty minutes cross-referencing four documents to size a single 2.4m lintel.
The cost compounds. Across ~80,000 NZ residential builders1, the rework bill from getting fixings wrong runs in excess of $1B every year2. The standard is right. The interface is wrong.
Build Centre exists because of a single morning on a single site. The lintel-sizing moment that broke our patience and started the company.
A timber-framed villa renovation in Saint Marys Bay, Auckland. High wind zone, four understuds, standard residential. The architectural plans didn't specify the fixing. We turned to NZS 3604.
Three of us — all qualified — opened three phones. Twenty minutes later we had it: MiTek bolt at 600mm centres, plus three bright nails at 250mm centres. The right answer. Twenty minutes lost.
Multiply that across every fixing question on every job in every crew across New Zealand. The cost isn't 20 minutes. It's hours per builder per week. It's $1B+ in annual rework.
That morning the prototype began. By July 2026, fourteen mobile screens. Six framing calculators. The brand. The grand-ideas pitch. And this profile.
A mobile-first app for the builder's back pocket. Compliance answers, site calculators, and ordering — all scoped to the active job, all pre-loaded with the project's spec data.
Three core competencies, in order of importance:
Every answer cites a specific NZS 3604 clause. Every output is reviewed by an LBP and a Chartered Engineer before publish. Never approximate. Never guess at the counter.
Built around how a builder actually works on site. Not a project management surface. Not a scheduling app. The office can have its own software.
New Zealand first. Australia next. Then the broader timber-framed-construction world. The engine is portable — the tables change per jurisdiction, the logic doesn't.
Three structural advantages, layered. Each one alone is interesting. Together they form the moat.
Sole founder, on the tools, with three recruited advisors covering the disciplines outside construction. Active recruiting for LBP / Chartered Engineer sign-off lead.
Anchors product, brand and the on-site perspective. Four years as a builder's apprentice, BCons. Construction Management, design background. Lives the problem daily on the Saint Marys Bay renovation — the same site that surfaced the lintel-sizing moment behind this company. Built every line of Build Centre's prototype, brand suite and team operating system to date.
Six concrete proof points from the first six months. Each one validates a different question: product, capital, partnerships, technology, brand, distribution.
Everything in this document points to one decision. Build Centre is asking MBIE to formalise the verbal commitment already in place — a development license to redistribute NZS 3604 inside the app, scoped to NZ residential builders.
We're ready to move. Approving this license unblocks the beta launch — at which point Build Centre starts paying back the standard's purpose every day.
Build Centre is solo + recruiting. Tane Waldin is the right person to start with for license approval, partnership discussions, or any question about the product, brand or business.