I grew up on jobsites. Then I watched good contractors lose work to bad websites.
Second Gen Digital isn't an agency that discovered the trades. It's a contractor who learned the web because nobody was building it right for us.
My last name was on the truck before it was on anything else.
I'm the second generation. That means I didn't choose this industry out of a course catalog — I got handed a broom in it. I learned pricing by watching my dad lose a job by fifty dollars and win the next one because he showed up when he said he would.
When the business became mine to run, the part that surprised me wasn't the work. It was everything around the work. Chasing paperwork. Chasing payments. Chasing the next month of jobs so the crew stays busy through the slow stretch.
Nobody in this trade has a marketing problem. They have a Tuesday-night problem.
Two agencies took my money. Neither one had ever been on a jobsite.
The first one gave me a template with a stock photo of a hard hat that wasn't mine. The second one sent monthly reports full of numbers that never once turned into a phone call. Both of them wanted to talk about "brand storytelling." I wanted to talk about why my competitor showed up above me on a map.
So I stopped outsourcing it. I learned page speed because a slow site loses a homeowner in four seconds. I learned local SEO because the map pack is where the work is. I rebuilt our own Google profile and pushed it past 370 reviews with a routine I trained into every guy on the crew.
Then other contractors started calling. Not for advice — for the same thing. That's the whole origin story. No pivot, no incubator. Just a guy who fixed his own problem and got asked to fix it for the people he already knew.
“I've written the estimate in the truck. I've made the follow-up call I didn't want to make. That's why the websites we build sound like a contractor talking, not a marketer guessing.”
Cody, FounderFive steps from the passenger seat to this.
None of it happened on purpose. Each step was a problem that needed solving, and the next one showed up right behind it.
Riding along
Dad's truck smelled like sawdust and cold coffee. I swept floors, carried bundles, and learned that the customer remembers how you left their driveway a lot longer than they remember the invoice.
Running the business
Eventually the phone became mine. Scheduling, quoting, hiring, collections, the 7 a.m. call when a crew truck wouldn't start. I learned exactly how much a slow week costs and how quickly a good month disappears.
The website problem
We built a real reputation the hard way — one job and one review at a time. Then I'd send someone to our website and immediately want to apologize for it. Two agencies took my money. Neither one had ever held a tape measure.
Learning it myself
So I learned it. Design, copy, page speed, local SEO, Google Business Profile. Not as a hobby — as the thing that would decide whether my own phone rang in February.
Second Gen Digital
Other contractors started asking who did my site. The answer kept being 'me.' So I made it a business, and I kept it pointed at exactly one kind of customer: people who work with their hands and don't have an evening left over for this.
The things we don't do are the reason people stay.
Every agency will tell you what they offer. This is the other list — the one that usually costs contractors the most when nobody says it out loud.
We don't sell you what you don't need
If you've got twelve jobs stacked up and no capacity, you don't need more leads this month. You need a site that filters them better. We'll say so.
We don't lock you into contracts
Monthly plans are month to month. If we stop earning it, you stop paying for it. The website is yours either way.
We don't hand you a dashboard
You will never be asked to log into a CMS at 10 p.m. to fix a typo. You send a text or an email. It gets handled.
We don't take every project
We build for the trades. Restaurants, boutiques, and startups are somebody else's specialty, and we'll happily point you to them.
If your name is on the truck, we already understand your business.
Roofers, HVAC techs, electricians, plumbers, concrete crews, tint shops, remodelers, landscapers. Companies between one truck and twenty, who do good work and want the website to finally say so.
See every trade we build for“The best compliment I get is when a contractor sends me a text at 6 a.m. saying a customer mentioned the website before they even got out of the truck. That's the entire job.”
Talk to the person who'll actually build it.
No account manager, no handoff. You get thirty minutes with the contractor who does the work.