When Connor Watumull talks about starting Miter, it does not sound like a typical founder origin story. There was no sudden flash of insight or overnight success. Instead, it began with curiosity, skepticism, and a deliberate effort to get closer to the problem than most people are willing to go.

Before founding Miter, Connor was working in an investing role and looking for what he described as a “decades-long problem” to devote his career to. He had always been interested in software and was particularly drawn to emerging innovation in embedded payments and accounting. The question was where that technology could actually make a meaningful difference.

Construction stood out quickly. From the outside, it was a massive and essential industry that appeared to lag the rest of the economy in technology adoption. The opportunity looked promising, but Connor was not willing to trust that assumption without firsthand experience.

So he did something unusual. He interned at a bookkeeping and accounting firm that worked with construction companies to see if the problems were real.

Within days, the answer was clear.

“Credit card reconciliation was completely manual… we were going line by line through these credit card statements, trying to job cost different transactions.”

Payroll was even worse.

“From a payroll perspective, it was basically impossible to figure out where your payroll was going and to job cost payroll. There’s this thing called prevailing wage, which was really hard to solve.”

Connor jokes that he got fired from the bookkeeping job because he was not very good at it. But the experience did exactly what he hoped it would. It confirmed that construction had deep, structural problems that modern software had not solved.

That realization became the foundation for Miter.

Starting with payroll, not because it was easy

Miter’s first product was a timekeeping and payroll solution built specifically for contractors. Connor was clear about why payroll became the wedge.

It was not because payroll was simple. It was because it sat at the center of the hardest problems contractors faced.

The team focused on three areas that were consistently broken.

First was job costing.

“We made it really easy to tie every cent of your payroll, both direct labor and indirect labor, down to the job cost code and cost type.”

Second was compliance.

“If you’re doing prevailing wage or union, we help you manage all the reporting there.”

Third was integration.

“Contractors use a completely different set of software than the rest of the economy. We built really high-quality integrations with all of that software.”

This focus immediately differentiated Miter from the two systems most contractors were stuck between.

On one side were construction ERPs with payroll embedded inside accounting systems. Those tools handled job costing reasonably well, but neglected HR and benefits almost entirely. On the other side were broad HCM platforms like ADP, Paycom, or Workday, which were powerful but too broadly-focused to cater deeply to construction-specific needs.

“Ninety-five percent of the time, [our new clients are using] one of those two solutions.”

Miter was built to live in the gap between them.

The biggest unlock was not flashy

When I asked Connor what surprised him most after their first few dozen customers, his answer was not a new feature or module. It was something much more fundamental.

“The biggest thing that we were able to unlock is a very clean payroll run from start to finish.”

That may sound basic, but in construction it is anything but.

Time tracking is still a broken problem in the field. Clean hours are hard to collect, review, and approve on a job-by-job basis. Without clean inputs, everything downstream falls apart.

Miter automated the full flow. Clean time data moved into payroll. Payroll calculated correctly using union or prevailing wage rates. Direct deposits were processed. Job cost and payroll data were pushed back into the accounting system.

“We didn’t realize how much time that would unlock just owning that entire process end to end.”

That end-to-end ownership became one of Miter’s defining advantages. It also reinforced another lesson.

Payroll does not stand alone.

Why integrations became a moat

As Miter worked with more customers, another pattern emerged. Contractors cared deeply about whether payroll and job cost data flowed cleanly into their accounting systems.

Generic exports were not enough.

“One of the big unlocks for us was specializing and really differentiating on the quality of our accounting integrations.”

Construction accounting systems are not like standard general ledgers. Each has its own job cost structures, cost codes, and workflows. Miter invested heavily in going deep with each one.

“Being able to pull the job cost structure in real time, map every cent in your payroll to the right job and cost code, and sync that data via API was another huge unlock.”

The deeper they went, the more momentum they gained. Each new integration made the product stronger for the next customer.

Depth versus breadth in vertical SaaS

As Miter expanded beyond payroll into benefits, onboarding, performance, field reporting, and expense management, the natural question came up. How far do you go before you lose focus?

Connor framed the answer around the customer.

“For the indefinite future, our customer is a construction and field service contractor that struggles with job costing, integration, or compliance.”

Some problems are horizontal. Others are deeply vertical. The deciding factor is whether customers are asking for it and whether it solves a real pain point.

“We want to build for that customer and solve the highest priority problems they face.”

Connor acknowledged that much of Miter’s codebase is not construction-specific. Hiring, paying people, managing benefits, and tracking time are universal problems. But the value of Miter lives in the construction-specific layer.

“The magic of Miter is the stuff that’s construction specific.”

That focus acts as a filter. It keeps the roadmap grounded, even as the platform expands.

AI as a tool, not a strategy

Toward the end of the conversation, we touched on AI. Connor’s response was measured and practical.

“We view AI as a tool to solve problems. We don’t want to start with a solution. We want to start with a problem.”

Miter is using AI in areas like performance management and safety, especially where it reduces friction for field teams. But the product is not built around buzzwords.

“It’s a safety or performance solution that uses AI.”

Not an AI product searching for a use case.

Closing 

Miter’s story is a reminder that vertical SaaS works best when it starts close to the problem. Connor did not begin by chasing a massive TAM or building a broad platform. He began by sitting with accountants, watching payroll break, and learning where the real pain lived.

By doing payroll better than anyone else in construction, Miter earned the right to expand. By going deep on integrations, they built a moat. By staying focused on one customer, they avoided the trap of solving everything for everyone.

And by treating AI as a tool rather than a strategy, they kept the product grounded in reality.

It is a disciplined approach. In a crowded market, that discipline is often what makes the difference.