Building a Business in a Male-Dominated Industry: How One Woman Is Disrupting Construction and Real Estate with Jennifer DeVito

Adrienne Garland (00:00.696)
Hi everyone and welcome back to the She Leads podcast. Before I introduce you to our next guest, I'd like to just ask you to take an action that supports women everywhere. If you haven't done so already, please just take two minutes to give the show a five star rating and review on Apple or Spotify. It's so important for women's visibility to share the journeys, wisdom and lessons of the women entrepreneurs and leaders that we feature here on the She Leads podcast.

And the best way to get the visibility that we deserve is to rate, review, and share the show with anyone and everyone who's interested in seeing more leaders in this world. Thank you so much in advance for helping to share our incredible show with more people. Now, I cannot wait to introduce you to my next guest. Her name is Jennifer DeVito, and she's the founder of Evolution, a women-owned, design, build, general contracting, and real estate company

Based here in Long Island, where I'm recording from right now, with a forward thinking approach that bridges the gap between buying, selling, and renovating, Jennifer has built a unique business model that helps homeowners understand the true cost of a home before they commit. So much of Long Island's housing stock is aging and real estate and construction are rarely aligned. So Jennifer created Evolution to guide clients from purchasing through renovation and new construction.

Her company emphasizes transparent pricing, realistic timelines, and a client dashboard that provides real-time visibility into progress decisions and costs. This integrated approach empowers buyers to make informed and confident decisions about their investments. Jennifer's company, Culture, is centered on empowerment, flexibility, and long-term career growth, particularly for women mothers. Women mothers? Yeah, women are mothers. For working mothers.

Jen DeVito (01:48.73)
You

Adrienne Garland (01:51.234)
and is active in supporting women in business and construction. Evolution is focused on helping the community in tangible ways. Most recently, Jennifer and her team built the first Home of Its Kind on Long Island for New Hour for Women and Children, a nonprofit that supports women transitioning out of incarceration. Jennifer's perspective sits at the intersection of construction, entrepreneurship, and community impact and building a business with a purpose.

I am so happy to get into this conversation and to welcome you to the She Leads podcast, Jennifer.

Jen DeVito (02:26.329)
Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited.

Adrienne Garland (02:29.332)
I am very excited too and I just wanted to make sure that I shared your whole entire bio because it is remarkable, truly. So before we dive into everything that you do to help people, I want to understand how did you get into this very male dominated industry that is construction and real estate and renovation?

Jen DeVito (02:53.017)
Okay, so my parents own an excavation company. So they do cesspools and they dig foundations for houses. So my mom runs the company and my dad is in the field. So growing up, I worked with my dad in the field and my mom in the office. So I can operate a bobcat, an excavator, drive a dump truck. And then I also can do all the paperwork, the quick books, the bookkeeping, the scheduling.

the estimates. So I learned entrepreneurship and I learned about work and hard work from them. So I say I learned from the ground below from them because they didn't have anything to do with building the house. But I learned from the ground below from them. And then I knew I wanted to own my own business, but I didn't know what. So I actually ended up going to Stony Brook University.

and Pulte Homes, they are a publicly traded home builder. So they build those thousand house complexes all across the United States. And they had bought out the biggest builder on Long Island when I was a junior. So they were hiring interns for every position. So I could have picked sales, I could have picked customer service, I could have picked purchasing, and they were offering construction. So I picked...

Construction. So I asked them if I was going to be using a hammer. They laughed at me. They were like, no, you're going to be a job super like leading to the project management role. So I had no idea what that was. I didn't go to school for this. and I just said, okay. And I ended up in Mount Sinai. We were building 400 single family houses. So they're all being built in sequence. and in different phases. So

Adrienne Garland (04:27.79)
Mmm.

Jen DeVito (04:41.581)
I got to see them from foundation to frame to electric plumbing, like all the mechanicals through the finish. And the way a house is built just makes very logical sense to me. You can follow the path of all the wires to the panel. You can follow the path of all the pipes to the main, to the main waistline. You can follow the structure to, you know, where it's resting actually on the foundation. if you, just because you don't know about it, if you do just think simple.

Follow the way it is like it is it's for me. It wasn't hard to understand So it was just me the only girl I was 20 years old and there were this there were hundreds and hundreds of Guys building these houses. So I was in charge of 10 finished houses per month every other month then you know, so you would be in charge of scheduling all the trades and basically

Adrienne Garland (05:21.4)
Wow.

Jen DeVito (05:39.64)
what I still do and I think is one of my keys to success is just because I was supposed to be, you know, the project manager. These guys are really all the professionals in their field. And I just put myself on their level and I just ask a ton of questions, how things go and they just say, we just have common conversations all the time. I still do that to this day. I'm still learning. And really how I gained respect from them was

Adrienne Garland (05:55.854)
Mm.

Jen DeVito (06:07.737)
All of my jobs were organized. And when I called that sub in, say it was the plumber, the whole job was ready for them. So the vanities were in the tile was done so they could come in and they could do the finished plumbing in one trip. Other guys who were supers on the project, they would come and it was missing a vanity. The countertop wasn't in. They'd have to finish that in three trips where mine they were done in one day. So that pre-planning and organization that I'm sure we'll talk about that I think is, you know,

Adrienne Garland (06:10.701)
Mm.

Adrienne Garland (06:22.209)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (06:30.36)
Wow. Mmm.

Jen DeVito (06:37.399)
women in women's brains that served me so well in the construction field. So basically these trades made more money on the houses that I was responsible for compared to the five other job supers who happened to be all male, but they made more money on mine. So that's how the level of respect they had for me just grew and grew and grew by proof of success in my job. So

Adrienne Garland (06:39.404)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (07:05.71)
Amazing.

Jen DeVito (07:05.911)
That was it. that's what I did. then basically I figured that out really quickly and I mean stuck with it, but I wanted to do more. So I wanted to flip my own house. So at 21, I bought my own, my first house to flip in Glen head. and, and, yeah, so I bought that. I used actually all the guys who were there. I used them on the side. We nights and weekends, we would work to fix this house up. And then when I sold it,

Adrienne Garland (07:14.819)
course.

Adrienne Garland (07:20.938)
wow!

Jen DeVito (07:34.628)
the real estate agent made more money than me. And that's when I got my real estate license. So that's how that whole thing started. So yeah, at that open house, two things happened. The real estate agent made more than me when I sold it. And people walk through this brand new house and one customer hit their head on the chandelier and they were like in the dining room and they were like, where's the dining room? And I was like, you just hit your head on the line fixture. So I was like, I'm going to stage all these houses from now on.

Adrienne Garland (07:37.452)
no.

Jen DeVito (08:02.859)
in the main living areas. So I bought my next house to flip and I was the agent and I staged it and I started getting a following in Glenhead and only they wanted to see what tile I did. They wanted to see what paint color I did. So that's how I grew the contracting side of my business was through these homes. I was flipping.

Adrienne Garland (08:02.987)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (08:22.446)
Amazing.

You are truly an entrepreneur where you experiment, you spot the problem and the issues, you iterate and improve, and that process never, never ends. There's always something to fix. I love your story so much because, first of all, you were exposed to business at such a young age and in the field that you

ended up in. And so many times we don't, you know, we think, I want to do something completely different from, you know, what my family does and we get pulled back in. But you really took almost the foundation, the things that your, you know, family builds, right? You took that foundation and you built something so incredible out of it. And I love how you created this whole entire ecosystem.

around it. Many people do not do that. And I totally agree with you that it's a sweeping statement, but women tend to be able to see ecosystems better, how everything works together, how you were describing how everything works and flows to the source. And then also 25 steps ahead. It's remarkable. Wow.

Jen DeVito (09:37.443)
Yep.

Jen DeVito (09:42.457)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jen DeVito (09:48.269)
Yeah, yes, mm-hmm, definitely.

Adrienne Garland (09:51.99)
So where you are today as far as the business, when did you start the business?

Jen DeVito (09:59.662)
So was about 20 years ago when I started everything. So I stayed working for Pulte for 10 years. So I was doing both. was working nights and weekends and working my own and working for them. And then Pulte actually ended up leaving Long Island. So I was their last project manager and wound down all their projects. And then that's it. I just continued to build mine.

Adrienne Garland (10:21.708)
Wow. So it was just a very natural transition. wasn't like something happened. Had that not happened, do you think that you would have started your own business?

Jen DeVito (10:30.169)
Yeah, I still, yeah, because I already had things going. So yeah, I was already doing a lot. I mean, it was, it was getting very hard to run, be working full time doing this nights and weekends. And I then I started having kids. So after like this 10 years, so then throw that into the mix. And that was tricky. And then also just to be like super professional, it, I started getting more and more customer projects and

Adrienne Garland (10:43.982)
Thank

Jen DeVito (10:55.735)
bigger ones where I couldn't come there, you know, just at night. We couldn't come there on the weekend. So the entire thing was transitioning there, but that timing and what happened at the company I was with, it helped in the whole situation, with having more and more time to give to my business during the day since it was all winding down. So I was able to go to these jobs more and more and more during the day.

Adrienne Garland (10:59.373)
right.

Adrienne Garland (11:16.238)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (11:20.792)
Wow. So this is so incredible. And right now you work with companies or not companies with individuals and they're looking to let's say purchase a home. And what I think is so unique and interesting about what you do is you have everything covered. So you understand what the home buyer is going through and you're able to look at the whole entire picture and communicate to somebody how

much this project of buying a home is actually going to cost. So can you talk about that whole process? Because it is unique. I've never heard this before.

Jen DeVito (11:55.277)
Yes, that's exactly it.

Jen DeVito (12:02.137)
So yeah, so we do kitchens, bathrooms, second story additions, new constructions for anybody. We do that. So even if you're not buying a home, if you own a home already, whatever, we do a lot of that work. But being that I was in real estate and construction, I saw how these two industries are so separate, but yet they go together. there is, everybody though has these unique skill sets as

Adrienne Garland (12:22.466)
Yes.

Jen DeVito (12:31.073)
real estate in its own and construction in its own. And I happened to have them combine. So what was happening was how you described is, so I was going on kitchen estimates and they were like, yeah, my agent said it was going to be $5,000 to renovate this kitchen. And I'm like, okay, no. And then I would go to, yeah. And they were so excited. They were first time home buyers. They just bought this house. They're like, all we have to do is the kitchen and it's great. And I'm like, okay, it's.

Adrienne Garland (12:35.406)
Wow.

Adrienne Garland (12:46.926)
When? In 1970?

Jen DeVito (12:58.641)
$50,000 to do the kitchen. And then it was like, you just saw how down they got. And then I would go somewhere else and it was like, you know, oh yeah, we wanted to take down this wall. You know, we wanted to make a big master here bedroom. And then we were going to add, change this into a bedroom for my mom. And it was like, okay, it's going to cost, you know, X amount of dollars. And like, oh, my agent said it was going to be so easy. And it was going to cost $10,000. And then it was like, so that's where I was like,

Adrienne Garland (13:03.704)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (13:27.691)
Really, these agents in this day and age, back in the day, real estate agents were valuable because there was no internet. So they're searching through and if you're using their contacts and they're searching through books, finding what's available. But now with everything on the internet, people really are finding their own houses. So to me, if you're going to use an agent, your agent should be your contractor.

These real estate agents are the only salespeople that don't know anything about the product they're selling. They don't know about the walls, they don't know about the mechanicals, they don't know about, you know, really much of what makes up a house. So that's how I started combining my real estate and construction companies. And my ultimate goal is to change both the construction and real estate industries completely, because I do think with the internet,

Adrienne Garland (14:00.312)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (14:15.117)
Mmm.

Jen DeVito (14:22.763)
I think a shift is due in real estate and then a shift is due in construction, a way overdue in both. But so to me, if you're going to use an agent, I think they should be, like I said, your contractor. They should be able to help you. So what we do is we help these buyers and we give them the estimate for what they would need to do to this house to make it work for them before they put in an offer. So this way, you know the whole picture of what you're getting into before you

Adrienne Garland (14:48.366)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (14:52.067)
commit to this house. And then I was doing that for a while. And then I was like, okay, so I have this whole buyer side figure out, but I was like, for the selling side, this four, five, 6%, I'm like, this to me is crazy also because now everything's Zillow, everything's Trulia, everything is the internet and buyers are getting alerts within seconds. literally, I think it was six years ago now.

Adrienne Garland (14:53.784)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (15:16.067)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (15:19.321)
I woke up in the middle of the night. I was like, my God, I figured it out. A flat fee. Because I was like, why are we charging a percentage if your home is worth 1.5 million or your home is worth $700,000, why are we charging more? Why is the agent getting more just because the house is worth more? We do the same amount of work. The pictures, the professional pictures cost $50 more for a bigger house. So I was like a flat fee.

Adrienne Garland (15:23.074)
Hahaha.

Adrienne Garland (15:40.259)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (15:44.578)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (15:47.002)
So my company, the way we're different is for sellers, we charge a flat fee for it's a 64 95. So $6,500, no matter the price of the house. Then for buyers, we are actually helping them figure out the cost of what they want to do. Then once they're under contract, we plan the renovation while they're under contract. So then the day they close, we start construction. that's how, yeah, real estate and construction. We've combined that. And then like I said, even if you're just construction,

Adrienne Garland (15:56.962)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (16:10.702)
Amazing.

Jen DeVito (16:16.373)
I've seen, like you were saying about women and just seeing the issues in the industry. The construction industry is so discombobulated. There is 20 different components that you need in order to do one project. So I have architect in house, I have designers in house, I have a showroom. So basically we help customers from start to finish to help them.

select all these finishes and order all these components to complete the renovation. Because otherwise you have to drive to 20 different stores just for a bathroom. There's a tile store, there's an electric fixture store, there's, you know, plumbing fixture store where you have to look at vanities. Nothing's in the same place. So we have everything under the same roof here. And I'm just trying to bring excitement and less stress.

Adrienne Garland (16:52.803)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (17:00.333)
No.

Jen DeVito (17:10.881)
to these industries. And I, yeah, it's your home. It's supposed to be, first of all, your biggest investment of your life. And I feel like people lose a lot of money along the way. And then once you start construction on it and your family grows, yeah, it should be exciting. All of this stuff with our home, it's what we showcase. want, you know, your, what you, your representation of your.

Adrienne Garland (17:11.118)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (17:23.437)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (17:36.73)
character of what you love to come out in your home and be proud of it. But construction has become dreaded by people. They need it done, but it's dreaded. All they think about is how long it's going to take, how many mess-ups are going to be, how over budget is it going to be. That's all they think about. And we are the complete opposite of all of that.

Adrienne Garland (17:41.166)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (17:53.015)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (17:58.769)
Oh, this is so refreshing to hear. And honestly, I mean, we haven't done any renovations in our home lately. So it's probably why I'm not familiar as I would be if I was in the middle of a project. But I do know that everything, whenever any of my friends or colleagues renovate something, it's always over budget. It's never what they want. The job is often never finished.

that there are so many things that go unfinished when you think it's done. And then to have the company come back and finish it, they give you such a hard time because they're on to the next bigger job that they have to do. So everything that you're talking about is so, so refreshing to my ears and I hope to all of our listeners ears as well. And it's remarkable that you are

Jen DeVito (18:38.393)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne Garland (18:54.156)
looking at all of the different issues and challenges that are in these industries that are so closely tied together and coming up with a new solution. this podcast, what I think about all the time is, know, women, when we start businesses, we are so smart, we are so thoughtful. And yet, in the past, when we've started businesses, we try to pattern our business off of what we

Jen DeVito (19:01.369)
Yes.

Adrienne Garland (19:23.266)
have seen as success in the industry. And so we build more of the same. And we just say, well, we're a woman-owned business, so it can be better. We cannot be building the same type of businesses with the same structures as men and expect to be successful. So what you're doing is exactly what I have been thinking about.

for 10 years, how can women build businesses that are successful, profitable, and different? And I think we just need to build them, do things like what you're doing, and prove that these models that are more thoughtful, that are more humane, that they too can be profitable. Because you not only do this incredible work for people at

an amazing value. mean, you're talking about the seller side of things, $6,500. That is so much less than many of these sellers have to give to real estate agents, or they end up doing it on their own and they don't know what they're doing. But you are really proving that things can be done in a different way. Also, with regard to your culture,

I know that the culture, the people that work within your business, you are dedicated to them and their lives. Can you talk a little bit about that as well?

Jen DeVito (21:00.023)
Yeah, so I have 23 employees right now and it's about we're about half and half. So it's about half women half men and everything you just touched on I I love and strongly believe in so a few things with culture with women I do I want women to see that you can do anything. You just have to think differently and think out of the box.

Adrienne Garland (21:06.872)
Perfect.

Jen DeVito (21:27.765)
everything that I do is very different than the average person. People talk about this work-life balance. It's impossible. If you want to get to a certain level, it's impossible. I think about it as work-life integration. So a bunch of the things that I've done for myself that have helped me grow in business because it's gained me more time to work on the business, but also not sacrifice time with my kids.

I've now implemented with my employees. So I my kids I have two daughters on nine and ten So they'll come with me to the job site. They'll come with me They'll be in the office when they get from home from school. They'll be in a meeting. They have their own Google calendars They have their own activities So they are learning those real-life skills also that I learned from my parents like now during this time but they know and that's what we do that

I support them, I go to their competitions, I get them to their activities that if we have to stop at an estimate on the way to going to a family dinner, then that's what we do because we're supporting each other. So I try to integrate it like that in that way. And then I also work out a lot. And I couldn't, it was getting very difficult for me to work, have my kids and then figure out when to work out.

Adrienne Garland (22:37.262)
Mmm.

Jen DeVito (22:53.675)
So I actually have my trainer come to my house during the day, every day, and I train with me and all my employees. And that has been the best thing ever. And that's a huge part of my culture. And I want people to be healthy. I want them to work out. And I do have a lot of moms who work for me and they can't find the time at home to work out. So for us, it's been great because it's promoting that with my employees. It's a great team building exercise. It's a great break.

Adrienne Garland (22:53.709)
Mmm.

Adrienne Garland (23:01.267)
my god.

Adrienne Garland (23:21.688)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (23:23.289)
And yeah, so we work out together. So that's how I've been able to get my working out in also. So just if you think differently than everybody else, I don't know anybody else who does these things. I know that from the outside world, people will say, you know, I'm crazy. This is crazy. I say it's a good crazy. I don't care what they say. I think it's good crazy. And as women,

Adrienne Garland (23:42.732)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (23:47.974)
If you it's we have a lot on our plates. So if you don't think differently, then you are going to feel like you're sacrificing something or you're going to feel like you're missing out. I don't feel that way at all. I feel like everything's integrated and I have a balance for myself. I'm happy with what I do for myself, what I do for my kids, what I do for my business. And that's it. So that's how I do those things. And you know,

Adrienne Garland (23:51.319)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (24:16.833)
with women in general, same thing. I want women to see that you can build a business in any industry. So I am the perfect example of this 1000 % male dominated industry that I've built this business. And I just want women to see that. And it's this industry that I'm in specifically is such a good example because

Adrienne Garland (24:23.841)
Hmm.

Jen DeVito (24:42.509)
So all the women that I have employed for me, we are the ones running all of these construction projects. So all that pre-planning, all that scheduling that we do in our daily lives, that is what a construction project is. We're so successful because of all the details that us and all our customers think about. We're building these plans in advance, setting everything up before construction starts. We are...

Adrienne Garland (24:47.427)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (24:55.277)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (25:00.43)
Yep.

Jen DeVito (25:09.133)
doing the schedules in advance. are pre-planning everything, pre-thinking, and that's how once the job starts, it's almost like the construction is easy because we just planned everything. So I wanna see more women in construction. I think that they would be very successful in the project management field. The trades, you know, lot of the guys, they're great in the trades. I think the women...

Adrienne Garland (25:17.987)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (25:21.582)
remarkable.

Adrienne Garland (25:29.549)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (25:36.606)
Brain and again, we need everybody we need the men. We need the women my company is a perfect example We can we cannot function without one or the other we need both and But I just want to It's just a fact. It's not like men versus women. It's a fact that our brains are different So I just want to use that in the best way. So take the Advantages that women have for their brain and use it and then they'll be successful

Adrienne Garland (25:46.58)
Mmm.

Jen DeVito (26:05.325)
the projects will be more successful and people will be more happy. So just go after whatever you're thinking. It doesn't matter if it's never been done. It doesn't matter if it's a male dominated industry. None of that matters. And I want, I do, I want to be out there for women to see. And yeah, I have 23 employees now. I want to be at hundred by next year, a thousand within five years and 10,000 employees within seven years. So yeah, I'm looking to do big things in construction and real estate.

Adrienne Garland (26:09.134)
Mm.

Adrienne Garland (26:34.674)
I have absolutely no doubt that you are going to and I think that what comes shining through is also your positive spirit and your can do attitude. It doesn't seem to me that you will let anything get in your way and you have such a beautiful spirit about you too. It's not any type of, there's no type of negativity there whatsoever and I bet you that that has to do with the fact that you work out.

every single day. So you release a lot of that. you know, when you said like, people will say to you, you're crazy for what you do. I think it's crazy to expect people to not be human beings and to give all of their time over to work and then everything about their body breaks down. We have to be healthy physically and mentally, especially with the type of, you know, goals and vision.

Jen DeVito (27:05.187)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (27:33.26)
that you have, and this is not just for you, this is employing thousands and thousands of people, which is what we need more of. So I think that there's a statistic that more and more women are starting businesses now than ever before. And so I hope that everybody listening in listens to the spirit and the positivity

that you have around building your business and that more women do the same. We can't keep doing the same thing that hasn't worked for us and expect that we're going to get different results. So we all need to be quote unquote crazy, but let's reframe that and say, experimentation, design, it's innovation, it's doing the next thing and seeing does that work? that not?

what are the results from it, you're getting incredible results. And I'm just, I'm so inspired by you. I'm so inspired by your energy. And I just, you you're talking and I think to myself, you know, why stop at residential? When are you going into commercial? Are you in commercial? And I also do, I also do want to know, has there been any challenges along

the way whether it's because you're a woman or do you think that it's just because business is business and it sucks sometimes?

Jen DeVito (29:10.125)
Yeah, I was going to say that that the one thing, like I said, how I was working nights and weekends, like I want everybody to grow and start your own business and do those things. just, you know, it's not easy. I have a very, very, positive attitude. That's how I always am. And things go wrong every single day. A lot of things go wrong every single day. And I, so that positive attitude helps me in the day to day.

Adrienne Garland (29:30.616)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (29:39.896)
But it is hard. It is hard as hell to grow a business, to do everything I'm doing. Again, I enjoy the hard. I don't mind it. That doesn't scare me. I like the hard. feel self-gratification at the end of every day. Yeah, are a lot of days frustrating. Yeah. My struggles, like you said, they haven't been

Adrienne Garland (29:49.71)
Mm-hmm.

Jen DeVito (30:05.881)
really based on women, like a woman thing, it is more just business, being in, mean, in what I'm trying to end being a disruptor in these industries. So real estate, obviously, definitely one of the most hated real estate agents because none of them liked me. So for, because of my model. So that took a little while in the beginning for me to get over. I wasn't on social media because I was getting such backlash and I was getting people personally calling me like.

very nasty to me. I finally realized I was like, this is for the customer, not for the agent. So I have to be out there, but you have to be strong to be able to fight everybody that's coming at you. Basically I'm going in the opposite direction of every other agent. So you have to be able to just, you know, hold your own, stay the path. that's been hard. And just, yeah, like you said, business in general, trying to grow a business self-funded.

Adrienne Garland (30:36.686)
no, wow.

Adrienne Garland (30:43.474)
Adrienne Garland (30:50.03)
Hmm.

Jen DeVito (31:02.837)
while so trying, I'm still in the cycle. do every estimate. I have employees where we're starting to get somewhere, but we're like nowhere yet. I still do every estimate. I still do a lot of the scheduling for construction. I still run the front end of every project. It's very tricky. So there's a lot of fundamental flaws in the construction industry that I'm trying to take on from.

Adrienne Garland (31:21.184)
Mmm.

Jen DeVito (31:30.66)
from the architecture piece, from what's taught in school to what actually gets done. There's so many disconnects that I'm trying to solve. So, and I'm okay. I'm okay with going, you know, slow and just I'll get there. For me, I did have to change my mindset along the way where I am a part of these entrepreneur groups and I'm one of very few women ever in these groups. And years ago, I remember being in them and

the men's businesses were always bigger than mine. And it was when they would talk, their wives were home with the kids and they were working 12, 15 hours a day growing these businesses. So they had so much more time to spend on the business, but I had two young kids that I was with. I was, it was, don't, I just didn't have as much time. So that was like very frustrating for me to watch these guys grow these businesses and mine was growing slower, but I, yet I felt like

I'm just as smart as them, if not smarter, why can I not get there? But then I had to ditch that mentality. And I just had to, I am enjoying the process and I'm enjoying this journey so much more than I care about these milestones. Yes, do I want to be as big as Amazon? Yeah. But if it takes me my whole lifetime to get there, I'm okay with that. I love every single day as hard as every day is.

Adrienne Garland (32:37.24)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (32:58.149)
I love every single day what I'm accomplishing and that and like I was talking about and my how I have set up my life between myself, my kids and my business. I enjoy that. So I don't have those struggles, those different mental struggles that these guys are dealing with where, you know, they're working on their businesses, but they're not happy at home there or they're missing their kids. Like, so I'm, I've come up with this that works for me and I'm happy.

Adrienne Garland (33:20.738)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (33:27.541)
So I, know, so that, but yes, growing a business in itself is so hard and trying to bring people on, but you have to grow the business while paying these salaries and then train them while I'm still doing estimates, while running to the field in between, but keeping it calm and not letting the employees feel that I'm like have 50 million things in my head. Yeah, it's very hard.

Adrienne Garland (33:47.128)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (33:54.926)
Those are the challenges. It's the business in general, marketing, finance, the whole thing. All of that is such a challenge in itself every day. I probably hired, I think 22 people in the past six months and we ended up with 10. So the hiring, training components, getting all these processes built while growing is so hard. Again, I love it, but it is so hard.

Adrienne Garland (34:13.208)
Hmm.

Adrienne Garland (34:21.846)
Yeah.

Jen DeVito (34:24.525)
So yeah, those are my struggles.

Adrienne Garland (34:26.68)
And I think that more women need to hear stories like yours. They need to hear the real, the raw, the unfiltered. They need to stop looking at these Instagram posts that show that everything is perfect and people are bouncing around on the beaches of Bali and making however many thousands of dollars.

a month. What you're talking about is hard work and it pays off. You have also truly taken a 360 degree picture of your life and designed your life around that for what you see as success. And I admire that so much. And I think so many more women need to shut out the noise of what is

expected of us, what success looks like, and we need to define it for ourselves. And as women, we have the very real constraints of life, right? And we don't have the luxury of pushing life aside in order to build our business. So I love how you are using the word integrate and integration.

you have integrated all these different aspects of your life. And yes, maybe right now while your kids are a little bit younger, maybe the pace isn't as quick as you would like, but that doesn't mean that you can't get as far in the same amount of time. It might be just at a different rate. And I think that that's something that...

women inherently understand because of who we are and the cycles of our lives. When it's time to push and you can push, you will go forward a thousand miles a minute. And when it's time to take a step back and to take your foot off the gas a little bit for whatever life reason, you will do that. But you have set up your business so that it can ebb and flow.

Jen DeVito (36:20.514)
Mm-hmm.

Adrienne Garland (36:40.948)
with your life and I'm just, I'm in awe of you and I really am. And what you have built so far and what you are going to continue to build in the future, literally build. So, my gosh, Jennifer, how can...

Jen DeVito (36:57.145)
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Adrienne Garland (37:01.752)
people who are renovating, who need someone who's on their side when it comes to buying a home and understanding the full picture of it. How can people get in touch with you?

Jen DeVito (37:13.689)
Yeah, so we are we're on social media. have a website. So social media Facebook Instagram where evolution general contracting you can find me on Facebook Jennifer DeVito our website is evolution li.com and yet please feel free reach out to us and yeah, even just for advice or looking to talk I tell people this all the time in anything to do with your home or construction. You're not sure where to turn most of our customers

We end up meeting with the women because they usually are in charge of the home renovation so I You know, it's great with us because obviously it's a woman talking to a woman and it could be easier and they end up showing us You know their phone their Pinterest there. It's just like an easier conversation sometimes So if you're stuck or you have questions, please feel free to reach out to me Where I'm very open. I just want to help everybody. I swear this industry is hard and I

Adrienne Garland (38:00.014)
Hmm.

Jen DeVito (38:12.321)
you have to trust people to renovate your home and you're spending tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars and it hasn't been easy forever. So if you're stuck in the middle of something, I mean, you're talking companies have been closing, allure just closed, people lost a ton of money, rent kitchens just shut down, people were in the middle there. So there's a lot happening in this construction industry. And so yeah, if you are just looking to just talk or get advice or anything, I swear, like, you know, I'm here, I'll talk to you.

Adrienne Garland (38:15.021)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (38:27.16)
Did it?

Jen DeVito (38:42.157)
DM me on Facebook anything because yeah, I don't think people have had somebody to talk to about Real estate and construction just on this real level I don't think ever and I don't know how people have done it for so long I mean you had to do it you had to do it but Yeah, I could I'm definitely happy to help everybody and yeah, just please feel free to reach out

Adrienne Garland (38:55.608)
No.

Adrienne Garland (39:09.046)
Amazing. And I know that you do also have one resource on your website too, Bath in a Box. Can you just talk a little bit about that?

Jen DeVito (39:17.753)
Yeah, so I so same thing. I mean real estate there has never been transparent pricing with their fees. None of them are listed. I mean construction is even worse where you could get a quote for a bathroom from 10,000 to 30,000. You're doing a second story addition. Those quotes are going to come in from 300 to 800,000 and how do you compare the estimates don't match up. It's crazy out there. So I am looking to bring transparent pricing and like guides for this to lead people in the right direction.

So in my construction business, I always bring it back to them. Like, okay, well let me accomplish this just for a bathroom. Then if we can accomplish it just for a bathroom, then we can move on to a kitchen, then we can move on to, you know, a whole house or an addition or an extension. So I literally, no matter what we're doing, I'm like, let's try it with a bathroom first. So I came up with Bath in a Box and Bath in a Box is six pre-designed bathrooms. So you just pick one to six.

And most bathrooms are the same size. They're five by seven to five by nine, or they're a little bigger if it's a double vanity. And we offer either a cosmetic upgrade or a full gut for the full gut is 17,995. And it includes everything. It includes all the finishes, the tiles, the vanity, the plumbing fixtures, the light fixture, the mirror, every detail in that bathroom is done preselected for you. So

because I know there are so many people who need bathrooms and they just don't have the time. They don't know where to start. They don't want to go to all these different stores. So they just leave it. And this product is supposed to help them. And we have taken a long time to put them together. They're really nice bathrooms. And yeah, so all you have to do is pick which look you like box one to six. And that's it. We handle the rest and we're done in 14 days.

Adrienne Garland (40:48.728)
Yeah.

Adrienne Garland (41:12.222)
Amazing. Wow. This is mind blowing. So everybody get your bath in a box if you're looking to renovate your bathroom and I'm sure more in a boxes are coming soon. I love it. I love it. Jennifer, thank you so much for such an empowering and energizing conversation. I'm so happy that we got a chance to sit down and talk today and that we're neighbors because we're both in Long Island. So.

Jen DeVito (41:19.033)
Yes.

Yup, they're coming. They're coming.

Jen DeVito (41:37.153)
I know, I love it.

Adrienne Garland (41:38.732)
I can't wait to meet you in person and thank you so much for spending your time with me here today.

Jen DeVito (41:41.038)
Yes.

Thank you for having me.