Alexis Rivas is the CEO and co-founder of Cover. We talked to Alexis to learn more about the inefficiencies in the modern homebuilding process and how Cover is applying the factory and assembly line model to housing.

1. Can you start off by talking a little about the problem you're solving with Cover?

2. Why haven’t people previously applied this kind of construction model to the problem of building prefab homes?

3. On the hardware side, with reference to the physical components that make up the house, how do you unlock that kind of mass customizability? What is the atomic unit to a Cover house?

4. Can you give us some insight into conventional house building and why so many projects end up delayed or over budget?

5. You indicated cars would potentially be 10X what they cost now, roughly, if they were built the way houses are. Do you imagine the reverse happening to housing where it becomes as cheap as cars eventually, where costs can dramatically come down?

6. Can you share any numbers you have today around product market fit?

7. After 2008, some of the traditional home builders got scared to ramp-up production too fast in case things went downhill again. How do you feel about scaling up or down with Cover to meet fluctuating demand?

8. Staying on the production side and carrying forward the car analogy, Tesla’s putting up new factories to build their batteries. What kind of factory footprint is required for Cover? When does that become the rate limiter on how well you can meet demand?

9. What’s your take on the changing rules around ADUs to promote more housing for people? California’s made some big changes. How supportive has the regulatory landscape been for you? Do you see it potentially changing in the future?

10. In addition to the COVID housing crunch, there’s a huge labor crunch. Do you have a take on that part of the market—the maintenance and ongoing upgrade side of the equation for owning a house?

11. How are you different from some of the other players in the space, such as Katerra and Abodu? What is Cover's position relative to these companies?

12. You mentioned you’ve been recruiting engineers from places such as Tesla. What has your recruiting pitch looked like to get folks to join?

13. It’s interesting that one of your recent investors was the largest home construction company in the US. How do you feel about partnering with traditional home construction companies? What, if anything, was the vision they shared with Cover?

14. Tesla has this vision where once we have full self-driving, Teslas could autonomously act as taxis when their owners don't need them. Do you imagine doing something similar with Cover in the future when you have built out more ADUs or houses—building a kind of autonomous Airbnb-like platform?

15. Looking at the smart home space, how do you assess the progress that's been made so far? Are we still in the early stages?