I've been on job sites since before I could walk.

I'm Auggie, and Reno Shield exists because of something that happened to my family. But the real story starts a lot earlier than that.

I grew up surrounded by construction. I was being carried onto job sites before I could walk. I loved everything about them — the noise, the pace, the fact that something existed at the end of the day that didn't exist that morning. As a kid I was mostly focused on being a kid, but all those years around the work taught me how to build, construct, and create almost subconsciously. I absorbed it the way you absorb a language when you grow up hearing it.

And I'll say the part that sounds ridiculous, because it's true: Minecraft poured fuel on the fire. A game made entirely of cubes whose whole point is to create. I was obsessed with it growing up and I still play it today. Some kids got their love of building from LEGO. I got mine from job sites and a blocky video game, and I don't think either one ever left me.

The detours

Like most people, I changed my mind about what I wanted to do more times than I can count. Finance. Medicine. You name it, I probably considered it. But no matter where I wandered, I kept getting pulled back to construction, architecture, and real estate — and for a long time I couldn't explain why.

Then I was diagnosed with ADHD. That's not a big deal to me and I'll never treat it like a victim card — but it made everything click. ADHD changes how your brain processes dopamine, and suddenly it was obvious why every "normal" career path burned me out: they were copy and paste. The same day, over and over. It was never that I didn't like those jobs. My brain just isn't built to sit in the same spot forever.

Construction is the opposite. The opportunity is endless. Every house is a new puzzle, every renovation a fresh challenge. What burned me out everywhere else is exactly what makes this industry feel alive to me. Some people need routine. I need the next project.

The reason this exists

Recently, someone in my own family was worked out of thousands of dollars on a renovation — one I had no say in. By the time I saw the numbers, the money was gone. And the worst part was knowing that if anyone had just looked at that quote with an experienced eye before it was signed, it never would have happened.

That was the moment. I'd spent my whole life learning how this industry works from the inside — how jobs get priced, where the margin hides, what a fair quote looks like. And I watched someone I love pay the price for not having access to any of that.

So I built Reno Shield: upload your contractor quote, and it checks every line item against real local pricing for your ZIP code, flags what's above market, points out what's missing from the scope, and gives you the exact questions to ask before you sign.

To be clear — most contractors are good people doing honest work, and the fair prices Reno Shield checks against already include real overhead and a healthy profit. This tool isn't against contractors. It's against signing blind. Good contractors come out of a Reno Shield report looking good. You just finally get to see it for yourself.

Nobody in your family should learn what mine learned the hard way.